Weija Jiang's statement actually made me laugh: "We are back, we will not be intimidated, we refuse to let an act of violence have the final word."
As if this self-important, superficial, elective social event were an act of bravado rather than a pompous conceit. Imagine thinking you're mustering courage and defiance against an act of violence by hosting a dinner in honor of the man who has brought so much violence to the world, to the economy, to our discourse, to our civil rights and even to the physical structure of the White House.
Her statement and this entire event are the perfect window onto our feckless, ossified national media.
The WHCA is spineless and feckless. It and its members don't deserve to be called journalists of any sort. What do we gain from their work? Stenography? No. Not even that. These glorified hangers-on are sane-washing and normalizing the treason of the Koch-backed Trump administration. Others have said, and I agree: The audience should have walked out the minute Trump took the microphone. Oh, except for Faux News.
I remember when Michelle Wolf pulled no punches in her jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders, several journalists rushed to distance themselves from those remarks, treating them as a referendum on her looks when they were clearly intended to highlight how Sanders was a serial liar in her role as press secretary. The WHCA dinner annually reminds us that the media should be way more adversarial when it comes to these spectacles, but they're willing to abide by the pageantry or actively seek it.
And just to point out the bleedin' obvious, the real audience isn't the people in the room, it's the same audience Trump is always playing to: The fascism-friendly 30% who worship his every move. There's a term in show business for what the reporters in the room were, they're called "props."
Weija Jiang's statement actually made me laugh: "We are back, we will not be intimidated, we refuse to let an act of violence have the final word."
As if this self-important, superficial, elective social event were an act of bravado rather than a pompous conceit. Imagine thinking you're mustering courage and defiance against an act of violence by hosting a dinner in honor of the man who has brought so much violence to the world, to the economy, to our discourse, to our civil rights and even to the physical structure of the White House.
Her statement and this entire event are the perfect window onto our feckless, ossified national media.
I read her statement as "Don't worry, reality will never break in and disturb this lovely bubble world we've built."
"the United States just fell to 64th in the world on press freedom" should be a headline everywhere. Except, oh yeah, the lack of press freedom.
Yeah, it's a conundrum: If a free press falls, but there's no one left to report it, does it make a sound?
The WHCA is spineless and feckless. It and its members don't deserve to be called journalists of any sort. What do we gain from their work? Stenography? No. Not even that. These glorified hangers-on are sane-washing and normalizing the treason of the Koch-backed Trump administration. Others have said, and I agree: The audience should have walked out the minute Trump took the microphone. Oh, except for Faux News.
I remember when Michelle Wolf pulled no punches in her jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders, several journalists rushed to distance themselves from those remarks, treating them as a referendum on her looks when they were clearly intended to highlight how Sanders was a serial liar in her role as press secretary. The WHCA dinner annually reminds us that the media should be way more adversarial when it comes to these spectacles, but they're willing to abide by the pageantry or actively seek it.
The one clip I saw was of Trump talking about running for a third term, cut to the audience, which is in stitches after his "funny joke."
And just to point out the bleedin' obvious, the real audience isn't the people in the room, it's the same audience Trump is always playing to: The fascism-friendly 30% who worship his every move. There's a term in show business for what the reporters in the room were, they're called "props."
Happy to be a Subscriber, Onward Parker ~w.