Journalists Urged to Condemn Trump-Carr Attack on Free Press at White House Correspondents Dinner

The White House Correspondents' Association is facing pressure to stand up to President Donald Trump over his administration's relentless assault on the free press.

A letter sent to the WHCA on Monday and signed by prestigious US journalists—including Ann Curry, Bill Press, Sam Donaldson, and Dan Rather—urges the association to use its upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner to "forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump's efforts to trample freedom of the press."

The letter outlines several Trump administration actions that it says have undermined the First Amendment of the US Constitution, including "retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists... the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press."

The letter says that making a strong statement of resistance to Trump will be particularly important because the president is expected to attend and speak at this year's dinner.

"These are not normal times," the letter states, "and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis."

The letter recommends journalists attending the dinner "speak forcefully, in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country's long tradition of an independent, strong, and free press."

On Monday night, Status News reported that Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr, who has threatened to revoke broadcasters' licenses unless they give the Trump administration more favorable news coverage.

Mark Jacob, former metro editor at The Chicago Tribune and Sunday editor at The Chicago Sun-Times who last week called for the dinner to be canceled, wrote in a Tuesday social media post that Carr's presence at the dinner seemed like a deliberate insult to the journalists attending.

"The suck-up media will never learn," Jacob commented. "When you invite fascists to dinner, they devour you."

In a piece published by the Washington Monthly on Tuesday, journalist Bill Scher said that Trump's presence at the WHCA dinner was a betrayal of the organization's stated mission to celebrate and defend freedom of the press, and Scher also recommended canceling the event.

"A fundraising event to support 'programs to educate the public and the value of the First Amendment and a free press,'" Scher wrote, "should not have a featured speaker who is the biggest peacetime threat to the First Amendment and a free press in American history."

Scher went on to slam the "naive" rationales offered by WHCA members in showcasing Trump at the event.

"There is nothing to be gained by 'showing the president and other politicos the importance of a free press' when the president is exerting state control over the press," Scher contended. "He has employed litigation and threats from the FCC chair to selectively apply the equal time rule and revoke broadcast licenses over their war coverage, and threats from himself to imprison war correspondents."