'Everyone's scared': This DC tradition now reflects Trump era is 'no laughing matter'

In 2025, the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is celebrating its 114th anniversary. The organization, founded during Democrat Woodrow Wilson's presidency, was designed to be an alliance of journalists who covered the White House but were independent of it.

The United States has had some controversial presidents since then, from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump. But before Trump, all U.S. presidents attended the WHCA's dinner — an event that goes back to Republican Calvin Coolidge's presidency in 1924.

In an article published Saturday, The Guardian's David Smith describes some of the anxiety surrounding the WHCA's forthcoming 2025 dinner.

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"It is no laughing matter," Smith reports. "The annual dinner for journalists who cover the White House is best known for American presidents trying to be funny and comedians trying to be political. But this year's edition will feature neither. Instead, the event in a Downtown Washington hotel on Saturday night will, critics say, resemble something closer to a wake for legacy media still trying to find an effective response to Donald Trump's divide-and-rule tactics and the rise of the MAGA media ecosystem."

Smith adds, "Joe Biden's effort to restore norms included the former president giving humorous speeches at the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) annual dinner. But just as in his first term, Trump will not be joining the group he has long branded 'the enemy of the people,' and most of his staff are expected to boycott."

The WHCA invited comedian Amber Ruffin to speak at their 2025 dinner but withdrew the invitation — a move that, Smith notes, is being criticized as an "exercise in capitulation and cowardice" and "a metaphor for the failure of the media to unite around a strategy to push back against Trump's all-out assault."

"Since returning to office," Smith observes, "(Trump) has seized control of the pool of journalists that follows the president, barred the Associated Press news agency from the Oval Office and handed access READ MORE: 'Everybody is on edge': Trump cuts threaten to dismantle 'godsend' program

Author Sally Quinn, widow of the late Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, isn't planning to attend this year's WHCA dinner —which, she laments, is taking place during a very dark time in U.S. history.

Smith quotes Quinn as saying, "Everyone's scared. You're scared you're going to get thrown in jail if you write something (Trump) doesn't like, and that's going to happen very soon. Then you have the owners of these news organizations who keep keeling over and bending the knee. So you've got all these people in the media who are quitting in protest. It's a horrible time to be covering Trump."

Quinn added, "If you're a journalist and you want to be on the story, this is the story to cover. But people are not having fun covering it. It's very intense and very upsetting."