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1. End it! 💀
I still remember the moment distinctly. I was in my mid 20s — a fledgling reporter at Roll Call newspaper. I lived just a few blocks away from the Hilton hotel on Connecticut Avenue where, every April, the glitterati of the political and media world flocked for the White House Correspondents Dinner.
I went on a run the Saturday night of the dinner. And I stopped to watch as all the people I thought I wanted to be made their way into the hotel. I pledged to myself that one day I would be a successful enough reporter to make the guest list for that dinner.
And I did. I went to eight (or so) WHCD dinners over the next decade or so. I was even sitting at the table next to Donald Trump when Seth Meyers and President Barack Obama roasted him in 2011!
And, I will admit, that for a bunch of those years, I LOVED it. It made me feel like I had made it. That I was, finally, in the club.
What I have come to realize — with age comes wisdom! — is that the “club” is the problem. And that the White House Correspondents Dinner’s time has come and gone — if it ever really had a time at all.
It needs to end. Now.
Let me make the case.
