This is an adapted excerpt from the April 20 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
On Saturday, journalists will gather in Washington, dress up all fancy and get together to celebrate the First Amendment at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. (No, I’m not going. I’m allergic.)
The point of the event is to put a spotlight on the importance of the free and independent press in this country. The dinner also funds scholarships for journalism students.
It has been a tradition for decades that the sitting president attends the dinner and gives a speech. Every president since Calvin Coolidge has attended at least one of the dinners.
It is hard to keep track of all the ways that this president has been threatening and hostile to the free press in this country.
That is, except the current president, Donald Trump, who has skipped the dinner every year he has been president.
Traditionally, the dinner involves lots of jokes at politicians’ expense — particularly at the president’s expense. We all know Trump cannot stand anyone making fun of him, and so he has avoided the dinner.
Until now. This year, he says he is going.
And it is, shall we say, awkward that this president will attend an event that is supposed to honor and celebrate the free press in this country.
Remember, this is a man who has repeatedly sued, or threatened to sue, news networks in this country because he did not like their coverage of him.
He has blocked The Associated Press from the White House. He has repeatedly ridiculed and belittled individual journalists by name. His administration has pulled press access to the Pentagon. It has tried to defund public broadcasting and strip TV networks of their broadcast licenses.
At this point, it is hard to keep track of all the ways that this president has been threatening and hostile to the free press in this country. Luckily, ahead of this weekend, someone made a list.
More than 250 veteran journalists signed on to a petition urging the White House Correspondents’ Association to protest at the event on Saturday, against what they call the president’s efforts to “trample freedom of the press.”
The petition includes a handy bulleted list of all the ways this president has tried to block the First Amendment in this country.
In light of that list, the petitioners say the association should offer, from the stage this weekend, a “forceful defense of freedom of the press and condemnation of those who threaten that freedom” and should do so “in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country’s long tradition of an independent, strong, and free press.”
As I said, more than 250 veteran journalists signed this petition. I wonder what will happen on Saturday.
Watch this space.
Allison Detzel contributed.
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