Truly, the press has been coopted by the progressives to do their bidding, it's only in the last four years has the press completely allowed itself to stand front and center for all to see their duplicity and not care.
Tom Brokaw says ‘no thanks’ to White House Correspondents' Dinner
POLITICO
“But I think any organization,” he continued, “… has to have a kind of self-policing instinct and what we’re doing with that dinner, as it has been constituted for the past several years, is saying, ‘We’re Versailles. The rest of you eat cake.’”
Henry told POLITICO: “I have looked up to Tom Brokaw my whole life and take his journalism and his thoughts seriously.” Henry also said he is working to improve the image that the dinner projects.
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“I have put a lot of energy into making sure as many White House correspondents as possible get invites, instead of celebrities and others. And, as we speak, I am working this very week with Jay Carney’s office on getting young staffers who work with the White House press corps some invites to the dinner,” Henry added. “As for celebrities, last time I checked it’s a free country, so individual news organizations can invite whomever they choose. It’s really not the WHCA’s place to dictate to members of our organization who to invite or who not to invite. But I continue to strongly encourage our members to invite as many journalists and White House aides to the dinner as possible because these are the people who deserve to be in the room for what is a very fun night.”
Brokaw stopped attending the WHCD years ago and says he won’t be there this year. “I would watch on C-SPAN, and as I watched on C-SPAN, I would try to put myself, kind of, if you will, in the person of an interested citizen in Kansas City, or in Little Rock, or in Spokane, Wash., saying, ‘That’s the Washington press corps?’ I mean, there was more dignity at my daughter’s junior prom than there is [at] what I’m seeing on C-SPAN there,” he said.
Despite his criticism, Brokaw doesn’t see himself as a never-say-die scold about the affair.
“This is not a crusade on my part. I’ve had my say. This is what I believe,” he said. “I think I still have some standing in the Washington press corps, having spent as much time there as I did, as I continue to, so it’s really up to the organizations and this generation of correspondents in Washington to make the determination for themselves. I’m not going to stay on their back about it. What I would do is take a hard look at it and find ways to temper the more outrageous qualities of it. Why do we think to have a successful evening, you have to have Donald Trump as your guest of honor, for example, or Lindsay Lohan?”
And it’s not as if Brokaw wants celebrities gone altogether. He recalls receiving a picture from CBS News’s Bob Schieffer last year of the newsman posing next to “Homeland” star Claire Danes. Along with the photo was a note: “Sorry, Brokaw, I’m not giving this up.”
“I get that,” Brokaw said. “Claire Danes is not someone I’m talking about. She’s a big deal. And you can bring in George Clooney, he loves to come there. He’s a serious guy in Hollywood. But it’s gone down-market, in my judgment, in too many ways.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/tom-brokaw-white-house-correspondents-dinner-90427_Page2.html#ixzz2Rt2KjQPL
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