CBS's Major Garrett: Skipping WH Correspondents Dinner Now Would Prove Anti-Trump Media Bias

NewsBusters.org ^ | February 12, 2017 | Tim Graham

[Kaslin]

CBS White House correspondent Major Garrett wrote an op-ed for Sunday’s Washington Post imploring journalists not to skip the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The headline was "Skipping 'nerd prom' now would prove Trump right" -- that journalists hate him too strongly to sit through a dinner with him.

Garrett also pushed back against the Post’s own Margaret Sullivan, who argued that it would be appropriate to cancel the event altogether because the press should not be Mr. Trump’s “prom date.”

"But no self-respecting White House reporter has ever been a president’s prom date, and the dinner isn’t a date at all,” Garrett writes. “It’s a cease-fire with bad wine and crowded tables. And if we, the media, stand Trump up at the proverbial dance because we’re pining for another ‘date,’ we make it that much easier for him to say we’re playing favorites. And in this case, at least, he’d be right."

Garrett decried decidedly non-objective media outlets -- which, by the way, don't have White House correspondents in the Brady briefing room -- taking their ball and going home:

When asked why his outlet won’t be co-sponsoring its always well-attended WHCA dinner after-party this year (and why he says he’s going fishing instead), Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter told The New York Times that his reasons were “Trump” and “the fish.” The New Yorker is scrapping its own, very popular, correspondents’ dinner weekend kickoff party, as well. U.S. News & World Report’s Robert Schlesinger says “The media should go all the way and boycott the dinner entirely this year.” 

....Holding the dinner does not confer respect on any president. It aligns one institution, the WHCA, with another, the American presidency. If the dinner were canceled because (gasp!) a president made a few snide remarks about White House reporters, that act of self-regard would say that the First Amendment is negotiable and that emotional well-being takes precedence over professional responsibilities.

As the Post explained in the credit line at the article's bottom, Garrett has been a board member of the White House Correspondents Association. His position is that "consistency matters."

Consistency matters. The New York Times, among other organizations, has for several years chosen to ignore the dinner. Fair enough. Reasonable journalists can disagree. The suggestion, though, that holding the dinner during the Trump era would be an act of debasement, or that the advent of the Trump administration is the right moment to do away with the event altogether, strikes me as precisely the wrong approach. My outlet, CBS News, will participate this year and proudly so. If they back out now, organizations that attended last year ought to explain what is different about this year. Is it Trump? Or is it them? Skipping needlessly hands an evidentiary cudgel to Trump and his acolytes that reporters cannot and will not cover his presidency objectively.

Trump backers would think attendance at the dinner is a very small signal of hostile coverage. There's so much  hostile coverage, who needs a dinner to prove it?

Lastly, if "consistency matters," Garrett should explain why George W. Bush was trashed by Stephen Colbert, but Obama gets Wanda Sykes kissing up, or Seth Meyers tag-teaming his attack on Donald Trump. Let's not forget Keegan-Michael Key helping Obama look funny. The proof is already obvious: the WHCA dinner in the Obama years underlined the press were on a prom date with a guy they deeply adored.

[gibsonguy]

Trump should skip this & say he has something important to do.

[ichabod1]

They can’t go this year, they need all their spoof stories and one liner for their fake news articles.

[FrankR]

Trump needs to go ahead with this, and after everyone is seated, and dinner is served, walk up to the podium and say, “OK, ladies and gentlemen of the media, there’s your free dinner...enjoy!”

And then, walk out.

[frnewsjunkie]

Major Garrett covered the Clinton impeachment hearings with Tom Finton for Paul Weyrich’s satellite network, America’s Voice. He has moved to the more liberal side of reporting than he was in the years past. Tom Finton is head of Judicial Watch and doing a more valuable work than Major Garrett is working for CBS.

Sounds like their reputation as reporters is beginning to sting a little bit... but Garrett is right.. if they don’t go, they are admitting who they are... but that is pretty much out of the bag anyway.

[sarasota]

Trump needs to end it. There’s no reason for this dinner it’s just an old tradition and we’re in a new ballgame. Finish it.

[RegulatorCountry]

Set up a new, separate “True Media” correspondents dinner and snub all the purveyors of fake news.

[TADSLOS]

President Trump should alternatively schedule a Flyover Country Correspondents Dinner via Skype from the WH eating a taco bowl el grande while the WH Correspondents Dinner is being held.

[Vendome]

LOL

Trump is a self adoring attention whore and these idiots would know that if they read Art of the Deal.

He hire a PR firm specifically to promote his name and eventually the Trump Brand.

You aren’t doing anything good or bad that he doesn’t turn into an advantage.

Probably half the crap he spouts he is insincere about and it’s just a tactic that fits into his larger strategy.

The only way to get at someone like him is to ignore him but, then you are screwed two ways to Sunday.

With the Internet, FaceCrook, Twitter and other social media he can magically turn the tables and deliver his own message directly to the world, making you irrelevant.

Fact is, you need him more than he needs you.

You need to have opposition news shows, otherwise there is no news.

You couldn’t possible say “he has a point” without reducing your own purpose.

Gonna be a great 16 years...

Enjoy the show....

[luvbach1]

They can always just invite Alec Baldwin and make it a full night of circle jerking.

Anyone else heard of the newspaper who ran a pic of Alex Baldwin in the guise of President Trump and mistakenly took it as an actual photo of the president and captioned it as such?

[Aria]

From the look on his face recently I’d say the dead seriousness of the job has weighed on the shoulders of this once “self adoring attention whore”.

I think he’s up to it but it still remains to play out.

[Iron Munro]

This dinner is just an annual opportunity for media personalities to prove to the world what flaming buttholes they really are.

It has turned into a childish contest to see who can do the best job of licking up to the (democrat) politicians they love and destroying the (republican) politicians they don’t.

[poconopundit]

...a good comedian can make a joke about a political figure that both his supporters and detractors and even the man himself can laugh at.

We witnessed such a comedian at the Al Smith Dinner. Donald Trump provided the comedy and Hillary was there. (YouTube of his speech at the link.)

[sarasota]

Good idea. Who started the correspondence dinner anyway? And why is it that it simply can’t be canceled?

[onyx]

I haven't read Major Garrett's op-ed, but it seems to me, Garret has it right: "Skipping 'nerd prom' now would prove Trump right".

Heretofore, I was under the impression the cowardly, POTUS-hating, Washington press corpse had already canceled this year's dinner.

Well, surprise, surprise! What a dilemma and mighty fine fix these snooty, cavalier Washingtonians have put themselves in...lol.

President Trump WINS either way!

[ColdOne]

LOL!

[txrefugee]

After Obama was so hateful to Donald Trump at the last dinner, I would tell them they can just replay the tape since they enjoyed it so much last time. If you have never seen it, look it up and see if you’d ever go back to eat with the jackals of the press.

[Churchillspirit]

Always liked Major Garrett. Sorry he left FOX.

[poconopundit]

Perhaps postponing it can work, but he should definitely go because he needs to show the country that he is willing to keep the dialog going.

Major Garrett is right, and I like what he says to say here.

But I would like to see him give equal treatment to all the bloggers and conservative commentators who don’t have a white house pass.

The media today is no longer an exclusive club. It includes a wider cast of characters such as the radio guys, Sundance, Howie Carr, and non-Washington types.

[Strac6]

The main problem for the TV news media now is that they don’t realize America is “over” their on-camera preening, their slanted, telepromptered questions and their obvious far-left liberal bias.

Does anyone in America, anyone, think for a moment that former Clinton political hack George Streptococcus is an unbiased policy guru and neutral news anchor?

Television, particularly broadcast television news viewership, is headed downhill faster than an Olympic bobsled. Television stations and networks charge their advertisers based on the number of viewers watching a program, and the downward slide of viewership of those programs is accelerating.

Broadcast TV news viewership is down 7 to 8% every year. It’s down more than 40% over the last 10 years. Fewer viewers equal drastically less net income for the stations and networks. No network income means no jobs for the TV news glitterati.

In addition to that, viewers’ ability to record a program, then fast-forward through the commercials drastically reduces the effectiveness of any advertising, and advertisers know it.

Advertisers are smart. They realize ABC, CBS and NBC spent all Summer and Fall trying to “sell” American voters on electing Hillary Clinton. Advertisers are asking; “If they couldn’t sell America on Hillary, why should we expect TV to be more successful selling our detergent, breakfast cereal or beer?”

As another example, Cronkite, Huntley & Brinkley, Jennings, Brokaw, Rather and the others attracted a fawning social following wherever they went. The supermarket tabloids covered their every move. One of the “Evening Stars” being recognized as having dinner at Elaine’s in New York was good for large numbers of extra lunch and dinner patrons for the next 2 months. Does anyone really care where Lester Hold or David Muir ate last Friday evening?

I would have asked about the dining habits of the third network anchor, but quite frankly, at the moment, I can’t remember his name.

As a further example of how advertisers are realizing TV advertising is on the way out fast, just look at Super Bowl 51. 10 years ago, every Super Bowl commercial availability was sold out months in advance. This year, at least 45% of the commercial availabilities were filled with “promos”; unpaid promotional announcements for other FOX programs. Every time an unpaid promo ran, instead of a paid commercial, it created a $3,500,000 loss to FOX.

Bottom line, as far as the TV news is concerned, the “last plane just left for the Coast.” They just don’t realize it yet.