Dinner journalists at the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) provided a passionate defense of their work at the annual event. This broke tradition and featured neither comedian – he said, “We are not the enemy of the nation.”
“Our responsibility is not to line up with either party or gender, but to serve the people of this country with integrity and dedication,” WHCA President Eugene Daniels said Saturday that a scattering of media members, lawmakers and Hollywood stars came together for 111 at the Washington Hilton Hotel.thAnnual dinner.
“We are deeply concerned with accuracy and take the heavy responsibility of being the custodian of the public’s trust seriously. We are not against it,” Daniels said with applause.
“What we’re not, is the enemy of people,” Daniels said.
Trump has repeatedly called “fake news media” “the enemy of people.”
Daniels’ remarks made Trump, who had never attended correspondent dinner throughout his first term in office, once again bounced back into tradition and chose to skip the Black Tie Gala.
“For decades, presidents on both sides of the political spectrum will join us and join us,” MSNBC’s Daniels told the thousands of attendees sitting in the Hilton ballroom.
“I want to be clear about something. We don’t invite this to this because we are for them. We don’t invite them because they feel comfortable with them or want a curry favor. We don’t just invite them to the president who says they love journalists or that they are the first amendment and the advocate of the free press,” he continued.
“We invite them to remind them that they should be. We invite our people who have chosen the public service of journalism to demonstrate that they are not doing that because they love flights in one of the Air Force or are walking to an oval office. WHCA Dinner.
Beyond Trump’s absence, Daniels admitted that Saturday’s dinner was “a little different” as organizers sent traditional headliners for the event. Comedian Amber Ruffin was tapped as a night celebrity in February, but the WHCA later announced that he “doesn’t feature a performance from this year’s comedy.”
The event was also held at a time when tensions between much of the media and the Trump White House grew.
The White House took control of the WHCA in February, when attendees were included in the press pool, including banning the Associated Press (AP) for the style relating to Trump’s preferred name in the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico.
A federal judge later ordered the Trump administration to restore access to the Associated Press’ White House space.
On Saturday, audiences rose to their feet with a standing ovation as Associated Press reporters Zeke Miller and Aamer Madhani accepted the news report awards under deadline pressure.
“This means so much for our entire team, as this is a challenging few months for the Associated Press’ White House crew,” Madani said she threw away her colleague’s name.
While it was usually a mix of journalists, lawmakers and performers, this year’s dinner seemed light to entertainers and politicians.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) were some of the past and present lawmakers who looked at dinner. A handful of Hollywood stars were also seen throughout the weekend festivities related to correspondent dinners, including “The White Lotus’s” Jason Isaacs, Tim Daly, “Wonder Woman” stars Lynda Carter and Michael Chiklis.
Axios’ Alex Thompson was recognized for his overall excellence in White House coverage for a report that revealed that “declining cognitive functioning has affected his ability to do his job.”
“We missed a lot of this story, and some people don’t trust us for it. We take some responsibility for our faith in the media that is at such a low level,” Thompson applauded.
“This is because you build trust by acknowledging errors and being defensive about them erodes that even more,” Thompson said.
“I would like to thank the association for their leadership not only now but always for their First Amendment defense,” he said.
“Everyone can push for the right thing that we know,” Daniels told the audience.
“Everyone can and should stand up to government interference in the free press.”
-Contributed by Alex Gangitano.
