Ann Compton, White House correspondent for ABC News, is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which holds its annual dinner in Washington Saturday.
Is this a tough crowd to entertain?
This isn’t playing Vegas. It is not “Saturday Night Live” with a national audience. Washington dinners are historically a tough crowd. What’s funny on a national level isn’t necessarily funny to this crowd.
So how did you go about searching for a comedian?
I looked high and low for someone who wasn’t that political. But I did want someone who did make it his or her hallmark to be very contemporary, very topical.
How did you settle on Scottish-born Craig Ferguson?
I started to TiVo Craig Ferguson’s “Late Late Show” during the writers strike because I do not stay up that late. I was struck by the freshness and the personal connection he makes with the audience, which I found very engaging. I called his producer, who told me that Craig was about to take the test to become a U.S. citizen. So I thought, in a political year, what do journalists need to hear most from? Uncommitted, first-time voters! So that cinched it, and he agreed to come.
Is it tough for a comedian to compete with the president?
In my experience, whatever the president does — any president — has just swept the audience away. In fact, I wonder why comedians want to even come and follow an act like the year President Bush had Steve Bridges, his stunt double, come and do a mirror image presentation. Why would you want to be the entertainer who followed Laura Bush the year she pushed her husband out of the way and said, “I’m a desperate housewife”? Nobody even remembers the name of the comedian who followed her. By the way, it was Cedric the Entertainer.
