Press shouldn’t skip White House dinner
Staying away will only hand an evidentiary cudgel to the US president and his acolytes that reporters can’t and won’t cover his presidency objectively
he White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner is not a mood ring. It doesn’t care if United States President Donald Trump — or any president — likes, dislikes, celebrates, scorns or ignores White House reporters. The annual gala does not indicate, illustrate or represent the relationship between the White House and the reporters who cover it. It is an institution that celebrates one bedrock American value, the First Amendment, and two journalistic goals: To highlight excellent reporting and to award scholarships to the next generation of American journalists.
That has always been true. But the Trump presidency has inspired some in the Press corps to boycott this year because — if I have this right — reporters are too good for Trump. When asked why his outlet won’t be co-sponsoring its always well-attended WHCA dinner after-party this year (and why he says he’s going fishing instead), Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter told the New York Times that his reasons were “Trump” and “the fish”. The New Yorker is scrapping its own, very popular, correspondents’ dinner weekend kickoff party, as well. US News & World Report’s Robert Schlesinger says: “The media should go all the way and boycott the dinner entirely this year.” Of Trump, The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan argues that it’s time to cancel the event because the press should not “be his prom date”.
But no self-respecting White House reporter has ever been a president’s prom date, and the dinner isn’t a date at all. It’s a ceasefire with bad beverage and crowded tables. And if the media stands Trump up at the proverbial dance because it is pining for another “date”, it makes it that much easier for him to say the media is playing favourites. And in this case, at least, he’d be right.
Reasonable journalists can disagree. The suggestion, though, that holding the dinner during the Trump era would be an act of debasement, or that the advent of the Trump administration is the right moment to do away with the event altogether, strikes me as precisely the wrong approach. My outlet, CBS News, will participate this year and proudly so. Holding the dinner does not confer respect on any president. It aligns one institution, the WHCA, with another, the American presidency. If the dinner were cancelled because (gasp!) a president made a few snide remarks about White House reporters, that act of selfregard would say that the First Amendment is negotiable and that emotional well-being takes precedence over professional responsibilities. For myself and for my colleagues on the beat, let me say unequivocally: Never.
Let’s remember, finally, why the dinner is organised: The WHCA, backed by the Bill of Rights, fights daily for access to the most powerful figure in American politics — and thereby, the association hopes, encouraging reporters in state capitols, county commission offices and city halls to do the same. Events built around the dinner allow collegiate scholarship winners to ask questions of seasoned members of the White House press corps, learning from some of the best about how they might be better reporters, storytellers and writers. In my experience, interacting with these energetic, optimistic and creative souls has consistently revived my hopes for the craft of journalism and the durability of a free Press. This was vital to me early in my career as a Washington reporter and now I see it as a chance to give back.
If Trump represents a genuine threat to Press freedoms, then passing on the dinner doesn’t change a thing. The right response, instead, is for reporters and news organisations to redouble their commitment to a WHCA dinner built around the journalism of the present and of the future.
Major Garrett is the chief White House correspondent for CBS News and a former White House Correspondents Association board member.
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