It’s Time to End the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Margaret Sullivan: “It never has been a particularly good idea for journalists to don their fanciest clothes and cozy up to the people they cover, alongside Hollywood celebrities who have ventured to wonky Washington to join the fun. But in the current era, it’s become close to suicidal for the press’s credibility.”

“Trust in the mainstream media is low, a new populism has caught fire all over the Western world, and President Trump constantly pounds the news media as a bunch of out-of-touch elites who don’t represent the interests of real Americans.”

“The annual dinner — or at least the optics of the dinner — seem to back him up.”

Nate Silver: “The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is one seriously screwed-up ritual. Like, it’s literally like some weird shit you’d read about in an anthropology textbook.”