The Root Goes to the Least Exciting White House Correspondents' Dinner Ever
Every year for the last nine years The Root usually gets lucky and gets one or two tickets (but usually just one) to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. During the Obama years this celebration of Washington’s nerdiest journalism nerds turned into a celebrity super bowl of sorts, a place where you could embarrass yourself in front of Game of Thrones’ Jaime Lannister or get stared down by super model Chanel Iman. Where the ugly people would invite the beautiful people and they would actually show up because everyone wanted to be down with Barack and Michelle (we met them once, so we’re on first name basis).
But this year is going to be very different.
No celebrities.
No hype.
No Barack and Michelle.
No President. (Trump said he’s not going because we’re all “fake news.”)
Just a room full of nerds, glorious, glorious newsy nerds dressed up in their best digs pretending to not care that no one wants to come to their number one party now that the president isn’t black anymore.
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So, of course the year where it didn’t matter The Root finagled 3 tickets instead of the usual one.
Join The Root’s managing editor, Danielle Belton, senior editor Yesha Callahan and political editor Jason Johnson as we survive what will either be a very nice rubber chicken dinner or a complete shitshow at a party that literally didn’t matter anymore the minute we could get more than one ticket.
“No one wanted to do this” so the job landed in the hands of an immigrant, said Hasan Minaj, giving the satirical remarks at the dinner.
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“The best obtainable version of the truth” is the theme of both Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s speeches as they both separately make the case for a sober, focused press in an aggressive search for the truth.
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Jeff Mason read the first amendment out loud making this event the most prissy, well dressed protest ever.
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Yesha and I are repeating ourselves as Jeff Mason lays out why a free press is necessary. Sorry about that. We were both hyped off the same words. Obviously.
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“We are here to celebrate the press not the presidency,” remarks by Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association as he begins his speech, a defense of the freedom of the press under a Trump Administration. “We are not fake news.”
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The evening’s programming has begun with a retrospective on combative relations between the press and the president(s) featuring Nixon, Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
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So sleepy!
I really need something to happen. I’m secretly am old lady who goes to bed at 9:30 most nights and a bed is calling me. This is the ultimate test. Will I survive?
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Two shrimp. Two JUMBO shrimp.
Yesha’s gonna die of starvation.
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Jason returned from his excursion where he ran into a bunch of black Republicans. Now he’s pretending to drink wine.
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The last time I was at this two years ago I embarrassed myself in front of Jaime Lannister and got the most epic staredown from Chanel Iman. This year? Um .... the dresses are kind of nice? I saw the crew from The Undefeated tho. They’re cool.
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Bread. Bread? Bread!
Yesha is starving so she’s eating this bread even though it only gives her hiccups.
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A military band is playing trying to will people into silence, but that’s not happening anytime soon. Also, we lost Jason Johnson. Where did he go, Yesha?
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Everyone seated gets a First Amendment pin. This will look great on my uniform when I end up in whatever gulag I get thrown in a few years from now.
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Just waiting for this shebang to start...
The view from table 260.
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