I began my journalism career at The Federalist, an outlet that was founded with only one official editorial position; ending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I agreed with it at the time, but having grown since, I now see the error of my ways and am calling to disband the entire White House Correspondents’ Association.
On Saturday, April 26, in Washington, D.C., the WHCA held its annual dinner, once a time-honored tradition of the capital. Now it is a shell of itself that the president does not even attend, and an event for which the organization struggles to find a host who won’t perform a seizure of hatred toward President Donald Trump.
Of course, this year the entire farce was held under the cloud of the liberal news organizations that cover the presidency having failed to report that President Joe Biden, as commander in chief, was not only not in charge, but often barely awake.
Look at what WCHA President Eugene Daniels actually said in his opening remarks, I had to read it twice to believe it: ‘I know this has been an extremely difficult year for all of you. It’s been difficult for this association. We’ve been tested, 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.’
Holding the powerful accountable? Where was this H.L. Mencken attitude when Grandpa Joe was dithering away in the West Wing?
Then there was journalist Alex Thompson, who mused the following, ‘President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception. … We, myself included, missed a lot of this story and some people trust us less because of it.’
This is the same Thompson hawking a book he wrote with CNN anchor Jake Tapper about the Biden administration. Jake Tapper! That guy not only ignored Biden’s obvious infirmity, he chided as crackpots anyone who did point it out.
Thomspson, like a sweet, summer child, doesn’t get it, yet. It’s not that many Americans trust the news media ‘less,’ it’s that they don’t trust us at all, about anything.
Not everything in life comes with second chances. These people covering Biden flat out blew it, and did incredible harm to the nation and the profession of journalism in the process.
Covering Biden’s presidency for four years and not realizing or reporting that he was not all there is the journalism equivalent of an NFL team going winless all season. That’s something that five teams, starting with the 1960 Dallas Cowboys, have suffered through in the post-war era, but none of them ever threw themselves a party to celebrate their abject failure.
We all know what happened over the past four years. The liberal media decided that Biden’s team, even if the old man was upstairs watching ‘Matlock’ and complaining his soup wasn’t hot enough, was better than electing Trump.
With absolute shamelessness and disregard for the people, these charlatans with reporter’s notebooks allowed their hatred of Donald Trump, and his supporters, to drive their coverage. Nobody should ever come back from that.
If there is still a legitimate purpose to the WHCA, it surely would have been to stand up to the Biden administration, to demand more access and evidence.
Instead, this gaggle of fools just nodded along like morons while former Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed actual, unedited videos were ‘cheap fakes,’ an Orwellian nonsense term, and that they shouldn’t be shown.
Traditions are good, they are important, and the WHCA, founded in 1914, has a rich tradition. But, traditions can also become mere trappings, a fancy symbolic set of clothes that bestows an appearance of honor on those who don it, deserved or not.
Thankfully, the Trump White House has taken measures to rein in the WHCA’s monopoly on West Wing coverage, bringing in centrist and conservative new media members, and of course, the ‘professionals,’ are having a fit.
But while The New York Times and others might mock press room queries from figures like Natalie Winters of ‘War Room,’ or podcasters like Tim Pool, those people are already doing a thousand times better covering Trump than the gentle treatment the venerated WHCA gave Biden.
It’s always good to be wary of industries where their members heap endless praise on each other and constantly give themselves awards. Hollywood, for instance, and that is what much of journalism has become.
‘Look at me!’ the establishment journalists all say, ‘I have an official WHCA membership card and a lanyard! So, obviously, I’m a brave warrior for the truth!’
Not everything in life comes with second chances. These people covering Biden flat out blew it, and did incredible harm to the nation and the profession of journalism in the process.
Nobody is buying it anymore.
Look, if the WHCA wants to continue, fine, it could have fancy lunches and lecture series, maybe get matching sweaters made. But in no way, shape or form should this organization play the slightest role in how the White House actually deals with the media.
Far better would be to put this dinosaur of the legacy media down. Journalists don’t need a club. They simply need to tell the truth.