The White House Correspondents dinner. Hamilton Nolan at Gawker:
This is not just any segment of the working press, enjoying a night out. This is the DC press corps, which has arguably the most important job in American journalism: informing the public about the activities of its government, and serving as a strong and omnipresent check on the government’s power. Great to know that our fearless watchdogs are busy swilling wine with the people they are supposed to be covering and introducing them to their wives and posing for pictures with Mila Kunis.
The United States of America is currently at war. In part because of the DC press corps’ soft, friendly relationship with those in power. Glad to see they’ve learned their lesson from that.
Every year I ponder whether it’s possible to go to Whore Dinner to cover it without being Part of the Problem, and I every year I decide that it is not. (Credit the New York Times and other news organizations who have come to the same conclusion.) And every year I and other humorless moralists write these somber diatribes about this event, and nothing ever changes, nor will it, because the media members themselves don’t give a fuck, because they like to meet celebrities, and the public doesn’t give a fuck because they already know the stars of the “mainstream media” are a bunch of patsy starfuckers who have to carefully consider how awkward next year’s Dinner might be every time they’re formulating uncomfortable questions for a politician, so who cares?
This little rant is not meant to offer any hope. It is not meant to project any sense of superiority. (We don’t get invited to these things.) This is only meant to make an annual declaration—which is not earth-shattering or surprising or particularly insightful, but is, nevertheless, necessary, in the sense of simply reading something into the public record—that you, the tie-adjusting, ballgown-donning, picture-posing members of the media at the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner, are not cute.
You are gross.
