Despite being a profession almost entirely comprised of the badly dressed and the socially awkward, the national news media tends to have an outsized ego and resents President Trump because he punctured it.
The major newspapers and networks have faced years of declining ratings and readership, but editors, reporters and columnists sat comfortably knowing they remained at the top of Washington’s political class.
When Trump ran for president on a platform that mocked the media as dishonest and irrelevant (and won), it jeopardized that status.
Time and People magazines announced Monday that they aren’t hosting their annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner weekend party this year. They join Bloomberg, Vanity Fair and New Yorker magazines, which also have said they will not be hosting their own typically highly anticipated and exclusive parties.
The reason they backed out is obvious. Trump, unlike any other politician, doesn’t yearn for their approval and doesn’t need to attend their parties. He backed out of the dinner, which is a first for a president in a very long time.
“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year,” he said on Twitter in February. “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”
Throughout his campaign, Trump pointed a finger at the painfully self-conscious media and got the public to laugh at them.
It was funny when at a press conference during the summer of 2015 Trump told Jorge Ramos, beloved among the mainstream press and an advocate for illegal immigrants, to “go back to Univision.”
Later that year, Trump called out a former Washington Post reporter for disputing his own report that included an unsubstantiated anecdote about Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the Sept. 11 attack.
“Ah, I don’t know what I said! Ah, I don’t remember!” Trump said in a mocking tone while flapping his arms around in a spasm. That was also funny. (And it’s fake news when the media say he was making light of the reporter’s physical impairment.)
Trump’s supporters laugh when he calls the New York Times “failing” and CNN “fake news,” because it’s always fun when the self-serious have their pants pulled down in public.
Even conservatives in the media were targeted. “Take away the glasses, he looks like a dumb guy,” Trump said of conservative writer George Will in early 2016.
Republicans like Sen. Ben Sasse get syrupy profiles in the Washington Post and Mother Jones, which, like clockwork, report any time Sasse criticizes the president.
Meanwhile, Trump is shoving the media for demanding he apologize for whatever issue they’ve most recently turned into a Lifetime drama.
Trump, as a Republican speaking about working class issues, was never going to be a media darling.
That notion was perfectly encapsulated by Vanity Fair contributing editor Fran Lebowitz, who in October, described Trump as, “a poor person’s idea of a rich person.”
She said condescendingly of people who admire Trump’s wealth, “They see him, they think, ‘If I were rich, I’d have a fabulous tie like that. Why are my ties not made of 400 acres of polyester?'”
That’s how journalists in Washington talk every day.
The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, masked as a celebration to dole out scholarships to young journalists, was an exclusive party because journalists like when the political class wants in.
Trump doesn’t want in.
As if by divine intervention, CNN said instead of inviting celebrities to sit at its table this year, it will bring journalism students.
“We feel there is no better way to underscore our commitment to the health and longevity of a free press than to celebrate its future,” the channel said in a February statement.
Journalism’s future wasn’t so sexy until the current president said he didn’t care about the dinner.
If it seems like the media have a personal dislike for Trump, it’s because they do.
They don’t want to lose their spot in the Washington hierarchy.
Eddie Scarry is a media reporter for the Washington Examiner.
