NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of former or retired journalists and eight press freedom groups are asking the White House Correspondents’ Association to stand up to the Trump administration’s recent attacks on the media at its rescheduled dinner this week — a dinner President Donald Trump says he'll attend.
The first dinner was cut short in April when a gunman, who prosecutors say was trying to assassinate Trump, opened fire at the Washington Hilton. The much
smaller rescheduled dinner will take place Friday, with enhanced security precautions, at the capital's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, formerly the Trump International Hotel.
The letter expands on a similar one issued in April, before the first dinner. It notes that since then, “the administration’s attacks on journalists and press freedom have become even more egregious.”
The letter, organized by former ABC News correspondent Lisa Stark and producer Ian Cameron, cites in particular the recent subpoenas by the Justice Department to New York Times journalists who reported on security concerns over the president's Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet. Additional subpoenas of the journalists' phone records have included even the mother of one reporter, and two spouses.
The letter also cites threats by Trump to revoke licenses of broadcasters “who refuse to acquiesce to his demands.”
“Our message to the White House Correspondents’ Association is now more urgent: forcefully stand up for freedom of the press in front of the President, publicly defend the journalists he attacks, and vow to resist his administration’s concerted effort to undermine the First Amendment,” the letter says.
It notes that the association's president, Weijia Jiang, has defined the dinner’s purpose as being “to celebrate the First Amendment and the hard daily work of the journalists who defend it.”
“We believe it is hypocritical to celebrate the First Amendment in front of the man who relentlessly attacks it," the letter says. "We urge the WHCA to condemn the administration’s actions from the podium and pledge to fight all attempts by his administration to undermine this core pillar of a functioning democracy.”
The groups signing on to the letter are the Society of Professional Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Coalition for Women in Journalism, the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Media and Democracy Project.
There are also about 520 individual signatories, mainly retired journalists. Almost all of them signed the April letter as well.
Trump has said he would be attending Friday's rescheduled dinner, calling the plan to go ahead with the event “a sign of Strength and Fortitude.”
“This announcement is a very good thing in that we cannot allow Lunatics to change our way of life, or even its scheduling,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
He added that he hadn’t decided whether to give his originally intended speech, in which he was widely expected to attack the press. “I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out,” he wrote. “In any event, it will be a ‘HOT’ ticket!”
