200 Journalists Urge White House Correspondents' Dinner to Call Out Trump's Press Criticism

More than 200 journalists have urged the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) to publicly criticize President Donald Trump's attempts to undermine press freedom. They expressed a desire for the journalism community to show a firm stance against the president's actions toward the press. An open letter requests that the WHCA "strongly oppose" Trump's efforts to trample on press freedom at the White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) on Saturday, April 20. This comes ahead of his first attendance as president.

The signatories of the letter pointed out that the "systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the press by the President" create a "fundamental contradiction" with the dinner's purpose, which symbolizes freedom of the press and democracy. They called on the WHCA leadership to condemn the president's threats against the press from the podium. The letter urged, "Speak truth to power, in the presence of the very person who seeks to undermine our nation's tradition of an independent, vigorous, and free press." The WHCA was asked to reaffirm clearly that press freedom is not a partisan issue and that the association will not normalize such actions, but rather will fight against any public official who has waged a systematic war on the work of journalists that the dinner commemorates.

The journalists criticized the administration's press suppression tactics, listing retaliatory access denials, coercive regulatory investigations, lawsuits against media outlets, proposed budget cuts for public broadcasting, dismantling international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal abuse, attacks via White House press releases and social media, arrests of reporters, and pardons for perpetrators of violence against journalists. They described these as the "most systematic and comprehensive attack" on press freedom. Ahead of President Donald Trump's first attendance at the dinner as president, the signatory journalists argued that the event could not proceed as "business as usual" with journalists dining alongside the president who attacks them daily.

Prominent signatories include former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, former ABC News White House correspondent Sam Donaldson, former NBC News anchor Ann Curry, and PBS NewsHour correspondent Judy Woodruff. The published letter also attached a lengthy list titled "Attacks on Freedom of the Press by the Trump Administration." This list cited examples such as Trump's dispute with The Associated Press over the "Gulf of America," the Pentagon's restricted access for media coverage, Trump's settlement of lawsuits against ABC News and CBS News, and various disparaging remarks made against individual journalists.