But the dinner was not news. Consider the ten elements of a news story.
Proximity? It is a local story at best.
Prominence? Come on, the association is made up of interchangeable reporters, and the banquet speaker was a history professor.
Timeliness? People eat dinner every day.
Oddity? Every trade association holds an annual dinner.
Consequence? The world will little note nor long remember what they said.
Conflict? The entire group is in agreement that President Donald John Trump stinks -- and Obama was a god.
Human interest? Well they are human but just not that interesting.
Extremes/superlatives? This wasn't the first dinner or the last dinner or the 100th anniversary of this group.
Scandal? No one cares about their sex lives.
Impact? A few dozen people engaged in the same occupation socializing is not unusual. It's normal.
And normal isn't news.
The annual dinner devolved into a Trump-bashing exercise that is as predictable as sunrise and as interesting as grass growing. Even Hollywood types who love bashing President Trump avoid it. Corporate sponsors have cut back or dropped it entirely because it is about as much fun as visiting grandma in the nursing home.
This one opened with a sermon from the group's president, who lectured, "I don’t want to dwell on the president. This is not his dinner. It’s ours, and it should stay ours. But I do want to say this. In nearly 23 years as a reporter I’ve been physically assaulted by Republicans and Democrats, spat on, shoved, had crap thrown at me. I’ve been told I will never work in Washington again by both major parties.
"And yet I still separate my career to before February 2017 and what came after. And February 2017 is when the president called us the enemy of the people. A few days later my son asked me, 'Is Donald Trump going to put you in prison?' At the end of a family trip to Mexico he mused if the president tried to keep me out of the country, at least Uncle Josh is a good lawyer and will get you home."
Gee, why would someone skip this affair?
Maybe when Sloppy Joe is president he will Make the WHCA Great Again.
But even then, it still won't be news.
The dinner got too big for its britches under President George W. Bush when celebrities began showing up. Bush to Ozzy Osbourne: "Mom likes your music."
Under Obama, the affair became an annual tribute to the Dear Leader with once friendly ribbing replaced with barbs against those who dare criticize The I Won.
Wanda Sykes set the tone at the 2009 affair, when she said, "Boy, Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails – so you said you hope America fails. To me, that's treason. He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, 'cause I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."
But we reached Peak WHCAD in 2011, when the Washington Post had Donald John Trump as its guest, and comedian Seth Meyers ripped on him.
Donald Trump did not get mad. He got even.
Politico reported, "How Trump Took the Shine Off Washington’s Glitziest Night. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is shrinking back to the boring awards ceremony journalists claimed to prefer. They have one man to thank."
An organization that once attracted comics from Bob Hope to Jay Leno had to settle on a history professor last night who of course told this impotent group how important it is.
Evidently, we cannot have a democracy without a banshee press screaming collusion nonstop for two years.
George Condon, who led the White House Correspondents’ Association from 1993 to 1994, told Politico, "I would like the dinner to go back to being fun."
You do that by not taking yourself so seriously. You do that by not treating it as a news event. You do that by not talking shop.
But they are not ready for that yet. The fall from landing the top late night comedians to a humorless history professor still has not hit home. And so, we partake in the Trumpenfreude.
It's not news but it is entertaining.
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