When Donald Trump attends the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner for the first time as president on Saturday, the pressure will be on the journalists’ organization to make some sort of a statement about the president’s relentless attacks on the media, which he has labeled the “enemy of the people.”
On Monday, a group of hundreds of veteran journalists and press associations sent a letter to the WHCA, urging them to “forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.”
“The dinner has long served as a symbol of the vital and irreplaceable role of a free press in American democracy and a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who uphold it,” the group wrote in the letter. “President Trump’s systematic, sustained and unprecedented attacks on the free press … render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose.”
Among those signing: Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson and Ann Curry and organizations including the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Foundation and the National Association of Black Journalists.
Typically, when the president attends the dinner, the WHCA president makes some sort of statement about the need for media access or some other issue. Some in the crowd would wear “First Amendment” pins. But the journalists who signed the letter made the point that the dinner “cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.”
“Speak forcefully, in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country’s long tradition of an
independent, strong, and free press,” the letter urges the WHCA.
They noted Trump’s bans on access to some outlets, which have included the Associated Press; as well as “coercive regulatory investigations,” as the president’s FCC chairman has launched multiple investigations of network programming over news and other content. Also cited were “defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press.” They wrote that the actions “represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president.”
The letter lists specific incidents of Trump’s attacks on the media.
As in years past, this year’s dinner is sold out, but at least one media outlet is boycotting: The HuffPost. “We refuse to celebrate journalism and share laughs with a ruler who holds such a dreadful record,” its editor in chief, Whitney Snyder, said in a statement earlier this month.
The duty of making any kind of statement about press freedom typically falls on the president of the WHCA, who has a speaking slot at the dinner and, in past years, has highlighted First Amendment issues and the detention of journalists abroad. This year, the association’s president is Weijia Jiang, the CBS News White House correspondent.
This year, the dinner also comes amid the backdrop of major major media companies staying silent or trying to appease the administration.
Jiang’s own network is in the midst of upheaval, following Skydance’s purchase of Paramount last year. That transaction involved the settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News over the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. While the network attorneys had called the lawsuit baseless, the previous Paramount owners settled the litigation for $16 million, a move widely seen as paving the way for the Trump administration’s approval of the transaction weeks later.
The scrutiny of CBS will continue later this week, when Paramount CEO David Ellison hosts a dinner at the Donald Trump Institute of Peace that is “honoring the Trump White House and CBS White House Correspondents,” per an invite obtained by Status News. Paramount is now in the midst of seeking the administration’s approval of its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
In the letter, the journalists noted that President Trump has publicly expressed personal support for media owners who have demonstrated favoritism toward his administration — including praising Skydance CEO David Ellison (whose company acquired CBS/Paramount under Trump’s watch), hostingOracle co-founder Larry Ellison at the White House for business announcements, and praising Fox News and its leadership — creating a system of rewards for compliant media and punishment for independent journalism that fundamentally corrupts the relationship between government and a free press.”