There was no president. There was no comedian. What remained at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner on Saturday night were the journalists and the First Amendment.
The stripped-down festivities were a reflection of the somber tone in Washington at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, in which he has battled with the press on multiple fronts and wrested from the correspondents’ association the power to decide which outlets have the most access to Trump.
Trump’s deeper involvement in politics began after then-President Barack Obama roasted the New Yorker’s presidential ambitions during the 2011 correspondents’ dinner. He skipped the annual gala during his first term, and his absence had been widely expected this year.
The association scrapped a scheduled appearance at this year’s dinner by comedian Amber Ruffin after she referred to the new administration as “kind of a bunch of murderers” on a podcast last month. The organization, a nonprofit that helps White House journalists provide robust coverage of the presidency, decided to forgo the event’s traditional levity and focus on celebrating journalism.
Association President Eugene Daniels said in an email to the organization’s 900 members last month that the dinner was meant to “honor journalistic excellence and a robust, independent media covering the most powerful office in the world.”
The event, which raises money for journalism scholarships, remains a highlight of the Washington social calendar. The ballroom at the Washington Hilton was still packed with journalists, newsmakers and even a few celebrities. Daniels singled out Debra Tice, whose son Austin has been missing for a decade since disappearing in Syria.
“We’ve been tested and attacked. But every single day our members get up, they run to the White House — plane, train, automobile — with one mission, holding the powerful accountable,” Daniels said.
He later showed a video of past presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, who addressed the dinner, saying that the association invites the president to demonstrate the importance of a free press in safeguarding democracy.
Trump counter-programmed the last dinner during his first term, holding a rally to compete with the event in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic canceled the 2020 dinner. This year, Trump had just flown back from Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome and had no events Saturday night.
The Trump administration has had multiple skirmishes with the press in recent months. The FCC is investigating several media companies, the administration is working to shut down Voice of America and other government-run outlets, and The Associated Press has sued the administration for reducing its access to events because it has not renamed the Gulf of Mexico in line with Trump’s executive order.
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the administration to stop blocking the AP from presidential events. In response, the White House adopted a new press policy that gives the administration sole discretion over who gets to question Trump and sharply curtails the access of three news agencies, including AP, that serve billions of readers around the world.
For many years previously, the correspondents’ association determined which news organizations had access to limited space events.
Alex Thompson of Axios, who won The Aldo Beckman Award for his coverage of the coverup of Biden’s decline while in office, addressed complaints from some on the right that the press had gone too soft on the Democrat.
“We — myself included — missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of it,” Thompson told the room of journalists. “We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.”
Saturday’s dinner also recognized the winners of a number of journalism awards, in addition to Thompson. They included:
—The Award for Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure (Print): Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the AP, for reporting on the White House altering its transcript to erase Biden calling Trump supporters “garbage.”
—The Award for Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure (Broadcast): Rachel Scott of ABC News, for her coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
—The Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists: Doug Mills of the New York Times, for his photograph of Biden walking under a painting of Abraham Lincoln.
—The Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability: Reuters, for its series on the production and smuggling of the deadly narcotic fentanyl.
—Collier Prize for State Government Accountability: AP for its series, “Prison to Plate: Profiting off America’s Captive Workforce.”
—Center for News Integrity Award: Anthony Zurcher of the BBC for his coverage of the fallout from Biden’s handling of the Gaza War.