SPJ axes Helen Thomas award after new anti-Israel controversy

The Society of Professional Journalists' has axed its Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award following a vote by the organisation's board of directors.

Last week, Journalism.co.uk reported that the SPJ executive committee recommended that the board retire the award after Thomas, a former White House press corps journalist, allegedly made anti-Israel comments in December.

Following the board's vote, the society announced on its website that it will no longer give out the award for lifetime achievement, of which Thomas was the first recipient of in 2000. The decision to stop the award will not impact that honor or subsequent honorees, SPJ said.

"SPJ staunchly believes Helen Thomas and all people in the United States have a right to free speech," the SPJ report adds.

"The Society defends that fundamental legal right as a core organizational mission, even when the speech is unpopular, vile or considered offensive."

But it added that the controversy surrounding the award "has overshadowed the reason it exists" and to continue offering the award would "reignite the controversy each year and take away from its purpose: honoring a lifetime of work in journalism".

"As I said last week after the executive committee meeting, it’s time we in SPJ stop focusing on this divisive topic and start focusing on what unites us," SPJ president Hagit Limor is quoted as saying.

It is the second time in six months that the committee had considered retiring the award, with the first following comments Thomas made in May last year when she responded to a question about Israel by saying "tell them to get the hell out of Palestine."

Thomas announced her retirement following the incident in 2010, leaving her job as a Hearst Newspapers columnist. It's understood she is now writing a column in the weekly Falls Church News-Press.

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