Usually, the White House Correspondent Association dinner has Hollywood stars, Zinger-filled comedy and public displays covering it.
On Saturday, there were no comedians and no presidents for dinner. Michael Chiklis is among the celebrities at hand, and his TV role ended in 2008.
“It’s just us,” Eugene Daniels, the association’s president and MSNBC host, told his journalist at the beginning of the night.
Journalists who spoke from Dais stressed the importance of the First Amendment, winning repeated applause from the black tie crowd. Levity comes in editing for the past few years, when the president still appears and stands out in the press and themselves.
Once the supper of the capital’s social calendar, it was like the surrounding corporate sponsored parties, a tradition in Washington. But when media agencies and President Trump’s violent attacks (has been prosecuted and threatened by the TV network) banned the Associated Press’s presidential activities and subverted the daily work of the White House press, it was a concept of a grand celebration.
“The emotions and reality are terrible,” said Jim Vandehei, a journalist and head of news.
“No presidents attend, no comedians to make fun of us all, the TV networks buckled under government pressure, the top producers exited corporate interventions and the public sourness of the media and the government,” Van der Hai said. “Enjoy the weekend!”
Indeed, in the past few days alone, the head of “60 Minutes” resigned payments from CBS owners to determine millions of dollars in payments filed by President Trump, and the committee that protects journalists, a nonprofit that has paid for journalists who reside in the basis of dictatorships, has issued a security consultation to journalists to visit U.S. states. On Friday afternoon, hours before the first wave of the weekend getaway, the Justice Department announced that it would summon reporters’ phone records and force their testimony during a leak investigation.
Maybe reporters can relax in one or two minutes.
“Our clients work very hard to present today’s uninterrupted news cycle, once a year, and we host a big weekend to honor their work,” said Rachel Adler, head of news at Creative Artists Agency, who represented TV reporters such as Andrea Mitchell and Audie Cornish and was a colleague at Jampacked Soiree at the private Georget club on Friday. “Why is it going to be a difference this year?”
Tammy Haddad, a Saturday Garden Party in Washington state, said that all the tensions in news access and independence, the weekend remains an opportunity for the community. “Some people choose to stay away, but have the opportunity to make new connections and find some common ground,” she said. (Her guests include editor Tina Brown, chef Bobby Flay and celebrity doctor Dr. Mehmet Oz, who recently vowed to lead Medicare and Medicaid.)
Despite this, the reporter's dinner itself is more serious than in the past few years. AP's reporters received some of the biggest applause, and AP's reporters were trapped in a legal battle with the government after Mr. Trump tried to limit the coverage of the word “Gulf of Mexico” for journalists.
Mr. Daniels promised to support the Associated Press and to the American voice, another channel for Mr. Trump to despise. Mr. Daniels, who has no evening artist, served as a keynote speaker, calls for press solidarity.
“We are not the opposition,” he said. “We are not the enemy of the people. We are not the enemy of the country.” He called journalists “competitiveness and impatience,” but also “humanity”, pointing to the efforts journalists have made to ensure accurate information is delivered to the public.
In the interview, top journalists from multiple news outlets said it was nearly impossible to convince celebrities and lawmakers to participate as guests. One reporter said the list of invitations to refuse to join the publication’s table was “double of”.
It was a dinner that once attracted the likes of George Clooney and Steven Spielberg. On Saturday, the most union actor in town appeared to be Jason Isaacs, a British man who played his father in the latest version of White Lotus, whose character fantasizes about murder and suicide throughout the season.
Atlantic journalist Mark Leibovich said he found it refreshing to be more focused on reporting than the comedian's speech.
Nevertheless, he added: “I hope we can use the time we get from it to leave an hour ago.”
The Journalists Association represents hundreds of journalists who regularly cover White House operations. The Trump administration has repeatedly weakened its autonomy, which has obtained precedents involving “swimming pools” that cover smaller presidential events by carefully selecting which channels it has gained, and has marked plans to cancel seats in the James S. Brady Press Press briefing room. (For decades, the Communications Association has overseen the pool and seat maps.)
In February, the group announced that Amber Ruffin, a comedian, was an actress and talk show host, would be the featured artist for the dinner. Last month, Ms. Rufen's appearance was cancelled. She has appeared on the podcast where she called the Trump administration “a bunch of murderers.”
Mr Daniels said he wanted to “make sure the focus is not on separatist politics.”
Since then, Ms. Rufen mocked the group for canceling her scene, quipping: “We have a free media so we can get better for Republicans in fantasy dinners – that’s what the First Amendment says.”
Over the past few years, including Mr. Trump’s first term in 2018, the White House Press Secretary attended the dinner and sat on Dais. Mr. Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she refused the invitation.
On Friday, in an interview with Axios reporter Mike Allen, Ms. Levitt was asked to describe the news media in one word.
“Exhausted,” she said with a smile.
