Kathy Gannon Substack
The White House Correspondents should take a moment to be ashamed.
Independent journalism is the cornerstone, or certainly a pillar of democracy and while our independence has been on a steady downhill slide, this annual dinner shames us all.
The White House Correspondents’ glitzy annual dinner celebrates a cozy relationship between reporters and the politically powerful people they are meant to hold accountable, seriously undermining journalistic independence and, in my view, our dignity.
It also suggests they don’t understand the damage these public displays of opulent schmoozing with the very folks we are to hold accountable does to our credibility.
To the White House Correspondents: Have the dinner if you must and invite politicians, but giving them a platform, and advertising your importance in our industry by insisting your chief guest be the U.S. president and making a big deal should a president refuse, reflects on us all. It shames us all.
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner should not be a platform for presidents, whether it is those presidents who are chummy with the media and use the dinner as a platform to joke about their opponents or presidents like Trump, a misogynist bigot, who used the dinner as a platform to spew his hate.
The president of the United States has plenty of forums and platforms, but for the White House correspondents to be among those providing platforms is a slap in the face to our integrity and our independence, which admittedly is already seriously suffering.
At the dinner the White House Correspondents’ president Weijia Jiang of CBS News said the rescheduled dinner was one of defiance. “Tonight the message is this : We are back. . . We refuse to let an act of violence have a final word.”
Instead it seemed the only message this White House Correspondents’ dinner wanted to send was about themselves, their image and not wanting to be remembered hiding under the tables at the last event cut short by a failed attempt on the president.
It would seem the White House Correspondents are tone deaf, oblivious to the criticisms of our industry, the frustration at the lack of independent, reliable, fact-based reporting. It was mind boggling to me that Jiang could say the dinner’s purpose was “A celebration of a free press and the vital role of journalism in our democracy for over a century.”
There is plenty of criticism of the White House Correspondents dinner from organizations that monitor ethics and accuracy in journalism.
In an article entitled ‘What’s Wrong with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Peter Hart of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), credited and quoted the Washington Posts Dana Milbank’s writing about the dinner in which Milbank said “the cumulative effect is icky. With the proliferation of A-list parties and the infusion of corporate and lobbyist cash, Washington journalists give Americans the impression we have shed our professional detachment and are aspiring to be like the celebrities and power players we cover.”
The Poynter Institute, which monitors ethics in journalism, has been increasingly critical as well.
Kate McBride, chair of Poynters Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership wrote “the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has always been a cringefest.” McBride called the dinner a trainwreck that should have been averted years ago.
“The annual rationalizing that it’s just a show of civility to party with the people one covers doesn’t overcome the public’s skepticism about our independence,” she wrote.
She’s right. It shames us all.
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