Law enforcement, the Secret Service and DC police did a great job in apprehending an armed gunman that tried to break into the White House correspondent’s dinner Saturday night. But let’s knock off this stuff that the dinner was about freedom of the press and the First Amendment.
Now there are really important organizations and dinners that honor the First Amendment and a free press like the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Take a look at them, maybe even contribute. The White House Correspondents’ by contrast today, is not one. Their guest of honor was Donald Trump, who has labeled the press the enemy of the people, filed ridiculous suits to intimidate the media, and barred reporters from events for political reasons.
Worse, Paramount’s David Ellison, who’s waiting for government approval to acquire Warner Brothers, which also includes CNN and who already owns CBS, threw a dinner two nights before Saturday honoring Trump, this is a guy who was in the news business, that may be a small part of his business, but honoring the most anti-First Amendment President in history is proving a disaster for CBS, once the gold standard of broadcast news.
After Saturday’s dinner was cut short, then the chatter began about freedom of the press and we must, as Trump insists, reschedule that dinner. No, we shouldn’t. There might be a dinner honoring those brave cops who protected everyone Saturday night. That would really be worth going to. But let’s not pretend this is a dinner about the First Amendment.