Comedy & The First Amendment

               By Hank Silverberg

      It was painful to laugh this week.

     A few hundred journalists, politicians, White House staffers and friends got together this past weekend at the Washington Hilton for what is jokingly called the “nerd prom,” and formally called the White House Correspondents Association Dinner. It’s an annual event that raises money for scholarships for aspiring journalists, and hands out awards for some great work by reporters. It began in 1914 as a celebration of the First Amendment.

    I have been to a few of these during my years as a Washington reporter, and I can tell you they are sometimes fun, sometimes boring.  It’s a good chance to network if you are job hunting, or socialize with people you normally compete against. You could tell which news organization is doing well financially by how many tables they reserve.

   For most of its existence, only Washington insiders knew or cared anything about the dinner. Women were banned from the event until 1962. But since 1993, when C-Span started to broadcast the event live, the dinner has become more about celebrities and media stars than about scholarships and awards.  

    The highlight of the event is usually some kind of political satire.  One of the dinners I attended back in the good old days of journalism –the 1990’s—featured the very funny Capitol Steps. The tradition of using comedy took off in 1983 with political satirist Mark Russell as the host.

     The President of the United States is usually among the guests and often the focal point of the comedy; fifteen Presidents have attended. And that was always considered a celebration of the Frist Amendment—the freedom to make fun of the leader of the free world and watch him laugh at himself. The President would then get up and make fun of reporters. It was amusing and a positive statement about the press and politics in a free society.

      Somehow though, the White House Correspondent’s dinner has lost that edge and focus.  I stopped going long before I stopped being a reporter because it's black tie only and I hate tuxedoes. I also couldn’t afford a ticket. So, I got in the habit of watching the dinners on TV, either live or in a rebroadcast. Most of the time it was a good laugh.  

   The President was not there again this year. Mr. Trump, as we all know, hates the media. He says it almost every day borrowing the label, “enemy of the people,” from Stalin.  And it’s pretty clear to the American public that he can’t take a joke either. (The last president to skip the event was Ronald Reagan, the year he was recuperating from an assassination attempt.) 

     What I saw Saturday night, though, was not funny. I love political satire but I dislike the use of foul language. So this year’s Comedian, Michelle Wolf, had me laughing at some jokes and frowning at her unnecessary use of four letter words, though they didn’t shock me.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=white+house+correspondents+dinner%2c+c-span%2c+2018&view=detail&mid=7DACDDCFEC3432DC4EE47DACDDCFEC3432DC4EE4&FORM=VIRE

After 38 years as a reporter, nothing shocks me. But there was other language that would have made it just as funny.  She wasn’t the best by far. Stephen Colbert locked that up in 2006 with his very humorous but politically charged assault on George W Bush.  Wolf  wasn’t the worst, either. That dishonor goes to Don Imus in 1996, who as usual was crass and just plain stupid in his assault on Bill Clinton. But both of those Presidents sat there and took the hit, coming back with some humor of their own.   

  There is also a great deal of concern in the news business right now that this type of fraternization between reporters and sources, with celebrities mixed in, presents a huge conflict of interest when it comes to covering those same people in the real world. For this reason the New York Times stopped participating in the dinner in 2007. 

   But what actually made me angry last Saturday night was the “instant analysis” by a five member panel that came on CNN right after the live broadcast. Okay, it was a slow Saturday night, but this was too much. I don’t like pundits and news analysis in general, and I have written about that before. But really? Analyzing, arguing and pontificating about a comedy performance as a news event?

Hank Silverberg @HankSilverberg

46s

@CNN. Speech? It was a comedy routine. Some was funny. Some was inappropriate and some just plain stupid. But it was NOT a “speech!”  Get it right.

CNN  @CNN

5 takeaways on Michelle Wolf's hugely controversial speech at the White House correspondents' dinner cnn.it/2FqIH3G | Analysis by Chris Cillizza

 Even Access Hollywood wouldn’t have spent more than 30 seconds on that.

     Lost in all this was the purpose of the event--to promote the importance of the First Amendment.

https://hanksilverberg.blogspot.com/2018/04/clear-and-present-danger-by-hank.html

The reaction hours later was even worse with some reporters calling for an apology from Wolf for her stabs at White House Press spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.  Sanders, to her credit, sat there stoically while she was raked over the coals by Wolf. But while the attack may have been a bit over the top, the bottom line, that Saunders lies daily, was right on point. In the end though, it doesn't really matter what those in attendance think, or what the ridiculous pundits opined on CNN   

     I suspect the average American tuning in on CNN or C-Span would have changed the channel quickly, once again using their own four letter words about the eastern media elite and the D-C Swamp.

     As journalists and as a nation, we can do better than this!

(Your comments and suggestions are welcome. There's a place below to leave them) 

     (If you are interested in a copy of my latest book, you can order it at Amazon.com, BN.com or hanksilverbergbooks.com )

      

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