Angry Anti-Trump Journalists Urge White House Correspondents Group To ‘Demonstrate Opposition’ to Trump at Dinner

A group of left-wing journalists is fuming that the White House Correspondents Association invited President Trump to attend its annual dinner, and is demanding that the organization express its “opposition” to the president. Since President Wilson attended the dinner in 1924, the president has customarily attended the event, with a few exceptions. But Mr. Trump has boycotted the event every year he has been in office. This Saturday will be different, as he will be in attendance and is set to deliver a speech in front of many reporters whom he has denounced as “fake news.”On Monday morning, a group of more than 200 current and former journalists and several journalism organizations sent a letter to the WHCA urging the organization to “demonstrate opposition” to Mr. Trump. “The dinner has long served as a symbol of the vital and irreplaceable role of a free press in American democracy and a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who uphold it. President Trump’s systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose,” the letter said. It noted that there is a “long tradition” of presidents attending the dinner, but said, “These are not normal times, and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.”The signatories urged members of the WHCA to deliver a “forceful defense of freedom of the press, followed by a standing toast to the First Amendment and a pledge to continue upholding such a critical cornerstone of our democracy.”Some of the signatories include former CBS News journalist Dan Rather, who has stated that he “vehemently” opposes Mr. Trump.Last summer, Mr. Rather — who was ousted as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” after he fronted a botched “60 Minutes” report that tried to raise doubts about President Bush’s military service — criticized Mr. Trump’s lawsuits against CBS and ABC.In December 2024, ABC paid $16 million to settle Mr. Trump’s defamation lawsuit after host George Stephanopoulos falsely and repeatedly said the president had been “found liable for rape.” Last July, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit over the editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 interview with “60 Minutes.” Mr. Rather said those settlements were “shameful.”Other retired journalists such as Sam Donaldson, Ann Curry, and Ian Cameron signed on to the letter. It also has the support of some current journalists, such as a “PBS News Hour” correspondent, Stephanie Sy.The Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association, the Freedom of the Press Association, and the Coalition for Women in Journalism. A reporter at NBC 4 Washington, Mark Segraves, shared the letter and wrote on X, “Shame on @whca for inviting @realDonaldTrump and on any journalists who attend the dinner, and @CBSNews for inviting @PeteHegseth and @NBCNews for hosting after party.”Meanwhile, a former CBS News justice correspondent, Scott MacFarlane, shared the letter and wrote, “NOTE: I will *NOT* be attending the dinner.”An analyst at Washington’s public radio station, WAMU, Tom Sherwood, wrote that he is “glad to see” the letter.“WHCA should never have extended an invite to Trump. He long ago passed the bounds of normal political dispute with media … the vicious, sexist attacks are inexcusable. Support the WHCA scholarships. Ditch the dinner,” Mr. Sherwood said. A United Nations correspondent for the Associated Press, Farnoush Amiri, shared the letter and quoted the section that read,“This cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.”Last month, a fired CNN star, Don Lemon, criticized the WHCA for inviting Mr. Trump. During an appearance on MS NOW’s “Clock It” — which is co-hosted by a former left-wing president of the WHCA, Eugene Daniels — Mr. Lemon said, “I think that they could be doing a better job and I am very disappointed that they invited Donald Trump to the White House Correspondents Dinner because he does not believe in the First Amendment.”“It’s a slap in the face to the American people that they even invited him,” he added. Mr. Daniels, who once questioned whether Mr. Trump has a case of “irredeemable racism,” defended the WHCA for inviting the president by noting that last year he also invited Mr. Trump to the event.

Angry Anti-Trump Journalists Urge White House Correspondents Group To ‘Demonstrate Opposition’ to Trump at Dinner

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