 Story highlights Thomas covered White House with "intensity and tenacity," Clintons say 
 
 Thomas will be buried in Detroit 
 
 She was a trailblazer on the White House press corps 
 
 Her retirement in 2010 came amid controversy 
 
 Trailblazing White House journalist Helen Thomas has died at age 92 after a long illness, sources told CNN Saturday. But Thomas's career in journalism ended abruptly in 2010 when controversial remarks she made about Israeli Jews to a Rabbi were caught on camera. She was 92. Helen Thomas, whose career covering the White House dated back to the Kennedy administration, died on Saturday at the age of 92, the Gridiron Club announced in an email to members on Saturday. For nearly 30 years, she closed the sessions with a no-nonsense “Thank you, Mr. President.” 
 
 “Helen was a true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers for generations of women in journalism,” President Obama said in a statement. “She covered every White House since President Kennedy’s, and during that time she never failed to keep presidents — myself included — on their toes.” 
 
 Ms. Thomas’s pointed queries often agitated the powerful, but she was also lauded for posing questions “almost like a housewife in Des Moines would ask,” a colleague once said. In 2000, she quit UPI and became a columnist for the Hearst News Service, a job she retired from in 2010 after she told a rabbi that Jewish settlers should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back to “Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else.” 
 
 1 of 109 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Notable deaths of 2013 View Photos A look at those who have died this year. Ms. Thomas became the club’s first female officer, as well as the first woman to be named White House bureau chief of a major wire service, the first woman to be admitted to the Gridiron Club, the first woman to serve as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association and the recipient of multiple lifetime achievement awards. She was a mentor to young journalists 
 
 Helen Thomas: Fast Facts 
 
 Thomas, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, was born in Winchester, Kentucky, on August 4, 1920. Thomas began covering the White House for United Press International when John F. Kennedy became president in 1961 and was a fixture there until her retirement in 2010. She wrote three books over the course of her career: "Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times" (1999); "Thanks for the Memories Mr. President: Wit and Wisdom from the Front Row at the White House" (2002); and "Watchdogs of Democracy? “You announced Luci’s engagement, you announced Luci’s marriage, you announced when Luci was going to have a baby, and I resented it,” he once told her. At his first news conference in February 2009, Mr. Obama called on her, saying: “Helen, I’m excited. on May 16, 2000, a day after it was taken over by an organization with links to the Unification Church. (PHOTOS: Life and career of Helen Thomas) 
 
 Present at the press briefings of ten consecutive presidential administrations, Thomas earned herself a front-row seat at White House press briefings. Although she identified herself as a political liberal, Ms. Thomas did not hesitate to criticize the Democratic administration of President Obama, even after he presented her with cupcakes on Aug. 4, 2009, their shared birthday. The Waning Washington Press Corps and How it Has Failed the Public" (2006).
– Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas is dead at age 92, reports CNN. The word "trailblazing" is already in heavy use, as here in Politico's early obituary, given that Thomas achieved so many firsts for female journalists—including becoming the first woman to serve as president of the White House Correspondents' Association. She covered 10 presidents, mostly for UPI, but her career ended on a sour note in 2010 when she was caught on video saying that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine." Washington Post: She was "unintimidated by presidents or press secretaries" and became "known as the dean of the White House press corps." The obituary notes that Thomas was the daughter Lebanese immigrants. "She routinely questioned White House officials over U.S. policies towards Israel and the Middle East, which led some to complain she was sympathetic to Palestinian and Arab viewpoints, tendencies which became more pronounced after she left straight-news reporting for opinion-writing." New York Times: Her "bottomless curiosity and unquenchable drive made her a prominent White House reporter at a time when men dominated the profession."