D.C. dinner may lose appetite for comedy
in that complaint at a dinner dedicated to speech and press freedoms can hardly be ignored.
Other comedians rushed to Wolf ’s defense, including at least two other former WHCA dinner speakers, Stephen Colbert of CBS’ “The Late Show” and Seth Meyers of NBC’s “Late Night.”
Olivier Knox, a SiriusXM correspondent who will take office this summer as the WHCA’s next president, said Monday that the association is gathering feedback and contemplating possible changes that might include dumping the comedian. “As somebody who has said for a very long time that the dinner should be ‘boring,’ that is to say focused on journalists and the work of good reporters,” Knox told CNN’s Brian Stelter, “I am very open to suggestions about how to change it.”
Founded in 1914, the organization has expanded to promote excellence with awards, encourage journalism education with scholarships, call attention to journalists who have been killed or jailed around the globe, and encourage administrations to provide more access.
The annual dinner has been the organization’s biggest fundraiser for those efforts. It also has provided a platform for presidents to give a humorous speech and display a sense of camaraderie as fellow Americans, no matter how much we may cross swords over questions of coverage.
But the event also has been dogged by hand-wringing over the appearance of journalists getting too close to their sources to maintain the adversarial role that prevents us from selling out.
It’s highly unlikely that the association will end the dinner, but news executives from Politico, CBS News and The Washington Post, among others, have said booking another controversial comedian would not be worth the risk, the Post reports.
Or they could take my suggestion as a concerned nonmember: Keep the entertainment, but let the president have the last word. As the closing speaker, he or, someday, she will be able to smooth whatever feathers might have been ruffled earlier or can choose to ruffle some more. Even Trump would have a hard time turning down that offer.