STARSTRUCK AT DC’S NERD PROM
How the White House Correspondents’ Dinner got too cool for school
FOR the self-proclaimed nerds who work in the far-from-glitzy worlds of federal government and political journalism, there is one weekend each year when their lives look like something out of a movie.
“The first year with President Obama, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were there. I was so excited to see Claire Danes!” said one regular at the star-studded annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner — ak a “nerd prom,” where politicians and the press chum it up.
Aretha Franklin. Will Smith. Helen Mirren. George Clooney. Kerry Washington. The A-list attendees go on and on . . .
“It’s a lot of ‘Can I take a picture with you?’ ” the regular said. “For the celebrities, it’s amazing, too — because as famous as they are, they’re still not the most famous people in the room. That’s the president.”
But Donald Trump tweeted on Feb. 25 that he’ll be skipping the April bash — the latest in a series of blows to the multiday lovefest. The day before, it was announced that one of the weekend’s biggest satellite events, a starry affair co-hosted by Vanity Fair and Bloomberg News, had been canceled. The New Yorker had already pulled the plug on its party, as well.
Some political insiders say it’s a good thing that the love triangle of politics, Hollywood and the press is coming to an end.
“It’s too chummy there. The press and the people it covers shouldn’t be hanging out after hours and rubbing shoulders,” said a veteran reporter for a late-night news show who has attended the dinners.
Last year on CNN, radio host Bob Garfield lambasted the tradition as “repulsive.”
“These are supposed to be the watchdogs, watchdogging those in power,” he said. “And they’re sitting there passing one another dinner rolls with zero possibility of any journalism breaking out. It’s a sham.”
This week, Garfield told The Post: “If I’m gonna dine with a high official, my tape recorder is going to be switched on and my notebook is gonna be open.”
The night had also become so glitzy — complete with red-carpet coverage on E! — that journalists were blinded by stars. In his 2015 documentary “Nerd Prom: Inside Washington’s Wildest Week,” filmmaker Patrick Gavin said, “There’s competition among news organizations about which celebrities they can get at their table.”
“Some news organizations weren’t inviting their own correspondents” so that they would have more room for celebs, according to Ellen Ratner, a longtime White House correspondent and 20-year veteran of the dinner. “It was ridiculous.”
THE event began in 1921 as a time for the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) to inaugurate new officers. Though President Warren G. Harding’s White House aides attended, the first commander in chief to take part was Calvin Coolidge three years later. In the early days, George Condon wrote in the National Journal, “there were songs . . . full of satire and poking fun at the White House and Congress.”
Celebs entered the fray beginning in the 1940s; over the next four decades, stars including Bob Hope and Milton Berle hosted. But Hollywood emcees didn’t become a regular thing until 1987, when movie star Ronald Reagan was in office and Jay Leno first took the mike. Since then, there’s been a comedian — from Sinbad to Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart to Jimmy Kimmel — every year.
The primary purpose now is for the WHCA to raise scholarship funds through the pricey cost of admission to the dinner (this year, a table is $3,000). But over time, the event has grown from a dinner to four days of parties that draw Hollywood’s biggest names and leave politicians and press acting like gawking fanboys.
The Clinton years really increased the star wattage. Among the guests in 1993 were the hottest of the moment: Michael Douglas, Sarah Jessica Parker, Richard Dreyfuss, and model Vendela. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer gushed to USA Today, “I met Barbra Streisand!”
“[People] don’t come for the scholarships . . . they come to see and be seen,” then-WHCA President-elect Ann Compton told Editor & Publisher in 2007. “Hollywood wishes they were in politics, politicians wish they were in Hollywood.”
The ante was upped during the Obama era, as celebs clamored for invites — and media outlets tripped over themselves to oblige them.
“There was more dignity at my daughter’s junior prom than there is [at the dinner],” Tom Brokaw said to Politico in 2013. “The breaking point for me was Lindsay Lohan.”
Hollywood insiders recalled how competitive media outlets would get about guests.
“One year an online site [gave me a list] and asked, ‘Which of these five people is
going to get the most attention?’ ” said a talent manager. “They think they want sophisticated and smart, but they really want the hottest celeb in the room.”
In recent years, it has certainly not been a hard sell. “I’m hounded for tickets for the Oscars, Met Ball, Art Basel. This is the same,” publicist Ronn Torossian said.
Dennis Quaid was reportedly so desperate to go in 2010 that his rep “called everyone in town trying to snag a ticket,” said a reporter familiar with the situation.
And for actors whose star has dimmed, it can be a lifeline.
Celebrity manager Mike Heller, who arranged for Lohan to attend in 2012, recalled of the actress, “She met so many politicians. She met the president. It was about elevating her brand.”
This year, though, liberal Hollywood is steering clear. “We surveyed some of the past attendees and didn’t get as much interest in a party this year as we’ve had in the past,” a Bloomberg spokesperson told Axios.com of the outlet’s decision to can- cel its affiliated party, which last year drew the likes of Emma Watson, Damian Lewis, DJ Khaled and Rachel McAdams.
Talent manager Eric Podwall told The Post, media outlets are typically reaching out to him about securing star guests by this time of year. But those conversations haven’t happened — nor has the announcement of a host been made, as it usually has by early March.
FOR many years, the tenor of the Correspondents’ Dinner has been like that of a roast — good-natured ribbing among the president, the press and Hollywood.
While 2006 host Stephen Colbert took things to a spikier place with his skewering of George W. Bush, the jokes got softer during the Obama administration.
The most pointed remark from 2015 host Cecily Strong: “Paris is so beautiful. Mr. President, you should really think about going there some time,” she said, gently mocking the president’s decision not to visit Paris after the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks.
Trump, who has attended the dinner twice, has been the butt of the evening’s jokes before. In 2011, host Seth Meyers hammered at the then-“Apprentice” star. “Donald Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican,” he said, “which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”
Trump, who was said to be steamed at the time, recalled to “Fox & Friends” this past week that “I loved the evening . . . I just thought it would be better if I didn’t do the dinner [this year]. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it next year. ”
The president’s move is unusual, but not without precedent. Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter each skipped the Corre- spondents’ Dinner twice. (Reagan did not attend in 1981, shortly after surviving an assassination attempt.)
One source inside the White House said the decision was the president’s alone.
“This is part of his master plan. The media is the opposition party,” added Brad Gerstman, a strategist who helped launch Trump’s presidential campaign. He said forgoing the dinner is “the kind of combat that the president is interested in. In his mind, it’s straightening out the press.”
Trump family friend R. Couri Hay, a New York publicist, agreed: “If it’s a chess game, he just took [the press’] king,” he said. “Tactically, he wins. I don’t blame the president. Why sign up for the crucifixion?”
The WHCA has said that the dinner — which has sold out every year since 1993, when it was first televised on CSPAN — will go on.
Bloomberg, for one, has said it is still “definitely” attending the dinner and buying the same number of tables it always has, even though its own celebrity-filled party is canceled.
AND the downgraded festivities are just fine with insiders who were turned off not only by the coziness between the press and the government, but also the parade of Hollywood wannabes — which has included “American Idol” losers, Kardashians and, of course, Lohan.
“I hope the dinner returns to what it was 15 years ago — that’s the way it should be. I haven’t a clue who any of these celebrities are,” said veteran correspondent Ratner. “It’s depressing. I’d rather talk to someone who won the Nobel Peace Prize than talk to an actress.
“I met Neil Armstrong one year. It used to be people who changed history, who have done things with their lives.”
“This is a good chance for the dinner to refocus,” Gavin added.
“More than ever, this dinner will have a good chance to focus on First Amendment issues. When the president is there, they have to tiptoe around this stuff.”
It used to be people who had changed history, who had done things with their lives. — veteran White House correspondent Ellen Ratner on Correspondents’ Dinner attendees