I still remember the moment distinctly. I was in my mid 20s, a fledgling reporter at Roll Call newspaper. I lived just a few blocks away from the Hilton on Connecticut Avenue where, every April, the stars of the political and media world flocked for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
I went on a run the Saturday night of the dinner. And I stopped to watch as all the people I thought I wanted to be made their way into the hotel. I pledged to myself that one day I would be a successful enough reporter to make the guest list for that dinner.
And I did. I went to eight (or so) WHCD dinners over the next decade or so. I was even sitting at the table next to Donald Trump when Seth Meyers and President Barack Obama roasted him in 2011.
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And, I will admit, that for a bunch of those years, I loved it. It made me feel like I had made it. That I was, finally, in the club.
What I have come to realize, though—with age comes wisdom!—is that the “club” is the problem. And that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner’s time has come and gone, if it ever really had a time at all. It needs to end. Now.
Let me make the case.
I’ll start here: I am not sure the Correspondents Dinner was ever a good idea.
It started back in 1921 as, effectively, a night out for the boys. Here’s the White House Correspondents’ Association writing of that first dinner:
On a social level, the correspondents saw Harding, a newspaper publisher, as one of their own. One of his first acts as president had been throwing a dinner for the correspondents who had covered his campaign in Marion, Ohio. Now, it was time to reciprocate.
Which, not great! A bit of a you-pat-my-back-and-I’ll-pat-yours sort of setup.
That said—and I think it’s worth saying this before I go any farther—I do get the argument made by defenders of the dinner: For one night a year, it’s OK to laugh a little, to put aside the naturally adversarial relationship between the press and the president it covers.
But that message has been lost over the past few decades as the Correspondents’ Dinner has transformed from an annual party for the generally nerdy, badly-dressed scribes who cover the White House to a glitz and glamor event attended by celebrities. Kim Kardashian feeling like it made sense for her #brand to go to the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2022—and debut her relationship with Pete Davidson—was probably a sign that we had gone too far afield.
(Yes, that really happened.)
The Correspondents Dinner—and, honestly, the broader White House Correspondents Association—has been rotting from the inside for a while now. As I write, it’s in danger of collapsing under its own weight anyway.
The WHCA canceled comedian Amber Ruffin’s planned performance at this year’s dinner after she made negative comments about President Trump during an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast. (Neither the president nor any of his senior team will even be at the dinner.) The Association has proven utterly toothless when it comes to pushing back against the White House banning the Associated Press from the pool and seizing control of the briefing room seating chart. It doesn’t help the WHCA’s case that its president is an MSNBC anchor.
The last few years—at least—have proven this fact: The time of the legacy media as gatekeepers for what matters and what people should pay attention to is over.
People now have SO many options (Substack, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram etc.) where they can get information; they do not need a big media company, likely owned by either a billionaire or a massive corporate conglomerate, to spoon-feed it to them.
Being a WHCA member or going to its dinner feels to me like a group of people trying to cling to their past power and influence even as that ship is sinking—or has already sunk.
It’s time, people. The writing is on the wall. Just end it. No one will miss it. Trust me.
