Jim Acosta: "Pull the Plug on the White House Correspondents Dinner" [View all]

[FakeNoose]

"At least for now... while the press is under attack in America"



Link: https://jimacosta.substack.com/p/pull-the-plug-on-the-white-house

I’m sorry Washington. But it’s time to pull the plug on “Nerd Prom.” At least for now. The White House Correspondents Dinner, in its current form, sends exactly the wrong message at a critical time for the free press in the United States.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved my days covering the White House. And it was an honor to be a member of the White House Correspondents Association. I enjoyed attending the dinners, cheering on the event’s scholarship winners, toasting the First Amendment, and yes, rubbing elbows with celebrities and other assorted Washington bigwigs. But this is not that era any more. And we all know it. In Donald Trump’s America, the press no longer has a seat at the table. Journalists are on the menu.

Ever since Trump’s first run for the presidency that began roughly a decade ago, he has savaged journalists, referring to reporters as “fake news” and worse, “the enemy of the people.” This is, however, about more than just words. The decision by Trump and high level officials in the White House to bar the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One over the news organization’s editorial decisions should have immediately resulted in a rethinking of the annual dinner which began in 1921. History of WHCD At that moment, my friends in the White House press corps should have immediately canceled any and all plans to hold a dinner that included any officials who are part of an administration that would punish the AP in this fashion....

... [snip] ...

This year, unfortunately, the dinner itself is the punchline. There is little to celebrate in the American news industry these days. Just this week, CBS News journalist Bill Owens resigned as executive producer of “60 Minutes,” making the stunning and courageous admission that he had lost editorial independence over the program due to corporate pressures, stemming from Trump’s specious lawsuit aimed at weakening the venerable TV news magazine. Earlier this year, ABC News settled a separate and equally ridiculous defamation case. As I said on my podcast earlier this week, Trump has cracked the code in his attempts to bully the press into submission. His intimidation tactics are obviously working, in part because we are letting it happen. When “60 Minutes” is in danger, no U.S. news organization is safe.

- more at link -

The White House Correspondents Dinner only works when we have a president with a sense of humor. There's no such thing as long as Chump is in the White House.