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More than three weeks after the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was thrown into chaos when a man stormed the Washington Hilton lobby and opened fire in an apparent attempt to kill President Donald Trump, the WHCA has yet to set a date for a rescheduled event. WHCA president Weijia Jiang said the association “continues to weigh options for rescheduling the event,” speaking from China where she was covering Trump when the attack happened and where she later said the association planned to revisit the event.
Jiang had also said earlier that “We will do this again.” Trump, for his part, wrote on social media that the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days, though the reporting notes that it is not his decision to make. Even so, the story described practical constraints: a large gathering like the roughly 3,000-attendee scale would be difficult to accommodate, and WHCA board members have been scoping out smaller venues.
The reporting said that if the event gets held again, it would likely be pared down, reflecting both financial considerations and security concerns. The story also said a return to the Washington Hilton or a full-scale dinner elsewhere is not foreseen, leaving WHCA to decide not only when and where to hold the next iteration, but whether the dinner itself should proceed.
For some media critics, the dinner’s optics have become the central question. Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, previously wrote that the event was a “bad look,” and she said last week that she still felt the same way. McBride said it “undermines the public faith in how the press does its work, and it makes it looks like we are pals with the people we cover,” adding that the attack was “deeply unfortunate” because a Secret Service officer was shot and is recovering.
McBride said managing optics now would be difficult, and she argued that security considerations could complicate any effort to redesign the event. She said, “You’d have to make the Secret Service happy,” and she added, “I don’t know you do that unless it is in a government facility. But it can’t be in a government facility.” She suggested that putting the dinner in a government facility could create the appearance that the WHCA is compromising, and she said the larger problem is that the dinner’s stated purpose has been overshadowed by the presence of the U.S. president.
Some security experts, however, said the attack did not translate into a major security failure. Jeff James, a retired Secret Service officer who now runs a security company, said the event was handled safely the first time. James said the gunman never reached the same floor as the president and was stopped within about 30 feet of reaching the middle perimeter, saying the attacker “never came close to being within handgun range, let alone shotgun range.” He called the Secret Service response a clear success.
Anthony Cangelosi, a former Secret Service agent and lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agreed that the response was successful and said the Secret Service was prepared for a “lone wolf” scenario like the one that occurred. The reporting identified the suspect as Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, who was staying in the hotel at the time of the attack.
Some press groups and journalists at the event said they were also surprised by what they described as a lack of focus on press freedom during the festivities. Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said she attended to keep reminding people about press freedom, but she said she was struck by “how little emphasis there usually is on that subject.” Ginsberg said the dinner is an “extremely expensive social event” at a time when journalists, she said, are being laid off in continuing high numbers and when CPJ has reported record levels of danger and harassment.
Ginsberg cited what she said has become a heightened environment for journalists, saying that “last year was the deadliest year ever in CPJ’s history for journalists,” that more journalists face harassment online, and that she said journalists are in jail and that in the U.S. the FBI has raided journalists, journalists have been arrested covering protests, and she said ICE knocked people to the ground. She said “none of that is really reflected at all in those four days of parties,” and she said she fears the event still functions as “raising a toast to press freedom” without confronting threats when they occur.
Marcy McGinnis, a former CBS News executive and co-founder of Exact Communication, said rescheduling the dinner did not make sense for a practical reason because the money raised for scholarships had already been raised. McGinnis said she was “troubled by the optics” but added that she believes journalists who focus on holding power to account can still do their jobs even when they have socialized at the dinner.
One scenario highlighted as unlikely was holding the event in a White House ballroom. Trump said the White House needs the ballroom for other work, and the reporting said his Justice Department has used that argument in an attempt to pressure preservationists over a $400 million project tied to the former East Wing. Even so, McBride said the ballroom option was not credible, saying, “It can never be in the ballroom,” and she said the WHCA would lose credibility if it tried.
Jiang, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, said she does not think the association can do nothing. She said board members “unanimously agreed that we have to do something,” describing options that could include an event to execute the association’s program, with awards and scholarships, or a dinner. The story also said one prominent guest will not return: Ginsberg said she is “never going to another” dinner, arguing that it is time to spotlight the importance of the First Amendment and a free press “in a different way.”