President Trump has yet again become the subject of controversy after he said he will not be attending this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. He said this yesterday through a tweet that stated he would be absent for the 29th April event.
“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!” He wrote. The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is usually a celebration of the freedom of the press. It gathers the attendance of celebrities, journalists, and politicians, with the President himself normally gracing the event with his presence. The President normally makes a light-hearted speech after the dinner which gets extensive media coverage year by year.
President Trump’s announcement comes a day after the exclusion of selected, major broadcasters and newspapers from a press briefing by White House Press Secretary Sean Spencer. Media outlets barred from the briefing included the BBC, CNN, Buzzfeed and the New York Times.
Media relations continue to deteriorate, with President Trump frequently calling negative news on the media “fake”. He has strongly attacked these “fake news” before, calling to media outlets to desist their airing. Furthermore, hours before the briefing, President Trump again mentioned the “fake news”, with stories citing unnamed sources being his primary subject on the same. He also went ahead to say that “fake news” was “the enemy of the people”.
Bloomberg News and the New Yorker will not have their annual after-parties this year. There have also been calls by various people to boycott the dinner itself.
The attendance of the President has been a tradition for the dinner. Every sitting President has attended the event at least once for the last 92 years, according to The New York Times. Former US President Barack Obama graced the event eight times during his tenure.
President Trump has attended the event before. In 2011, then President Obama made jokes about rumors that had been propagated by Trump concerning his nationality. He also joked that the White House would be turned into a casino should Trump occupy the Oval Office.
Trump was the brunt of more jokes over the dinner, particularly from that year’s host Seth Meyers. Camera footage showed a stony-faced Trump sitting through the jokes, although he later remarked that he “loved that dinner”.
A statement made by the White House Correspondents’ Association said they noted the President’s announcement. They further said the dinner would “continue to be a celebration of the First Amendment and the important role played by an independent news media in a healthy republic”.
Over the years, the last immediate President not to attend the event was Ronald Reagan. His absence was because he had been shot in an attempted assassination. Despite his absence, he still made the effort to phone in. According to NPR, the last President to simply skip the dinner was Richard Nixon in 1972.
President Trump’s marked absence in this year’s event shows the continuing decline in the President’s unpopularity in media houses.
