In defense of the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Give the Nerd Prom a chance

George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, 2006.
(Image credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

The latest skirmish in the "war" between President Trump and the media is the former's decision not to attend the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, which famously features a roast of the president by a comic, followed by a comedy routine by the president. The immediate and near-unanimous reaction of those who care about such inside-the-Beltway events was something like: "Now maybe the thing can go away and die."

It's very popular among journalists to mock, or even seriously criticize, the "Nerd Prom." And, look, I get it. The "optics" (as they say in Washington) of the Beltway's reporters, who are supposed to be impartial towards power, hobbing and nobbing in tuxes with the man they're supposed to cover adversarially, are not great. And it's not just optics: Washington — as any reporting beat, really — does have problems with proximity and back-scratching between those being covered and those doing the covering. As a conservative who frequently whines about liberal media bias (why, just yesterday in fact!), I certainly understand quite well why it's not a great look when you have reporters laughing merrily at President Obama's jokes.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.