Nerd Prom Is a Mess

April 24, 2015 7:11 AM

"For the sake of argument, here are the best and most reasonable ways to improve [the White House Correspondent's Dinner]."

This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, explained: Strong said she doesn't "want to be too mean where it really hurts somebody" with her jokes, and wants to make everyone laugh (bipartisanship!). In other words, don't expect another Stephen Colbert.v

Nerd Prom: The Movie. A reporter quits his job covering the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner to lift the lid on what really goes on behind the scenes during the biggest week in the world’s most important city.

Can White House Correspondents’ Dinner Partiers Name a Single White House Correspondent?

The strangest White House Correspondents' Dinner ever. Three days earlier, he had signed into law his much-debated Lend-Lease Act, permitting him to send badly needed aid, munitions, and equipment to Britain, China, the Soviet Union, and other countries under siege by Nazi Germany and Japan. Now, he wanted to tell the nation—and the world—what it meant.

posted by roomthreeseventeen (25 comments total)

When The Watchdogs Wear Tuxedos, Politicians Rest Easy (2014, NPR):

This is an administration that has systematically stiffed the press corps for six years. Access is so bad the press usually can't even take photos at photo-ops. Saturday's dinner, putting reporters face to face with Obama for five solid hours, was by far their longest presidential encounter of the year. Yet, of course, not one question about Ukraine, immigration, the Keystone XL Pipeline, the budget, the NSA, the climate, the Mideast peace process or anything else. As for everyday opportunities to see the president, Thomma assured me that objections of the Correspondents Association and its allies have been duly registered at the White House.

posted by MonkeyToes at 7:21 AM on April 24, 2015 [6 favorites]

Stephen Colbert's suggestions are still germane:

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

That the WHCD was so clearly embarrassed by one of its best moments suggests that the best and most reasonable way to improve the White House Correspondent's Dinner is to scrap the whole thing.
posted by Gelatin at 7:25 AM on April 24, 2015 [29 favorites]

Merge it with the National Prayer Breakfast and save the president some schedule space. National Correspondent's Prayer Brunch.
posted by ghharr at 7:30 AM on April 24, 2015 [11 favorites]

That the WHCD was so clearly embarrassed by one of its best moments suggests that the best and most reasonable way to improve the White House Correspondent's Dinner is to scrap the whole thing.

Beat me to it. This entire concept is a national disgrace and has been for years. There's no better proof that the national media sees their job as coddling, stroking, stoking and outright fellating government officials, rather than acting as any kind of a check or conducting any semblance investigative journalism. It's only "nerd prom" if all the nerds at your highschool, instead of doing their own thing in the computer lab or newspaper room, lined up to suck off the star quarterback after every practice.

There's no more David Halberstams, it's Tim and Lukes Russerts and David Gregorys all the way down.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:36 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

National Correspondent's Prayer Brunch.

...and then Obama slapped his forehead and said, "Jesus Christ, we forgot the meal!"
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:37 AM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Okay this is all well and good and yes the WHCD is a travesty, but that Bob Garfield NPR piece is annoying. Why on earth would you schedule an ethics in journalism colloquy at the same time as the biggest media party of the year? It'd be like scheduling an SAT prep class on prom night. Either a stunt or just really foolish.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:38 AM on April 24, 2015

I hate the phrase "nerd prom." The attendees are some of the most powerful people on the planet - tops in politics, the press, the media. These people are the elite, and it feels annoyingly cloying and self-deprecating to call it "nerd prom."
posted by elmer benson at 7:57 AM on April 24, 2015 [12 favorites]

How about returning it to it's stated participants: White House correspondents and related journalists only, kick out all the celebrities and Hollywood types --- there's already way too many events overrun by Kardashians etc, they don't belong at this one any more than they belong at a local PTA meeting.
posted by easily confused at 7:58 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Also, the WHCD pales in comparison to The World's Best Prom. (previously)
posted by elmer benson at 8:02 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Nerd Prom" is and always shall be San Diego Comic-Con, not the Correspondents Dinner, which is filled with the rich, famous, powerful, and decidedly non-geeky.
posted by frogstar42 at 8:03 AM on April 24, 2015 [5 favorites]

"Nerd Prom" is and always shall be San Diego Comic-Con, not the Correspondents Dinner, which is filled with the rich, famous, powerful, and decidedly non-geeky.

And yet the term subtly reminds members of the courtier press of their place in Washington society.
posted by Gelatin at 8:12 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

The UK isn't really much better than the United States, but one of the things I do admire is the hostile relationship between the press and politicians.

These guys are SUPPOSED to be on opposite sides. The Correspondents' Dinner is like having a dinner with Mafia kingpins and police officers together. When I saw that video of W pretending to look for weapons of mass destruction at the CD, with the reporters laughing uproariously, I literally screamed at the screen, "Hundreds of thousands of people died - this is not a fucking joke!"

I don't think it should be cancelled, though - because the sight of it should render any rational person deeply skeptical that these "reporters" are doing anything of the sort, and it's good to be reminded what spineless toadying bootlicking lackeys we have in this role (I still miss Molly Ivins and Helen Thomas...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:55 AM on April 24, 2015 [11 favorites]

I don't think 2006 will ever or even can ever be repeated. As Heather Mallick put it, "Colbert had the wit and raw courage to do to Bush what Mark Antony did to Brutus, murderer of Caesar."
posted by bonehead at 9:03 AM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think "nerd prom" came about as a term almost as an extension of the description of D.C. as "Hollywood for ugly people." Part of me feels like the WHCD is relatively harmless. I'm not one of the elite but I think it's one of the very few annual events like this, especially for the press corps. The only other thing big fancy dinner I can think of is the gridiron dinner but most people outside the Beltway haven't heard of it. That said, I have relatively fond memories of trying to sneak in to the WHCD receptions beforehand as an intern and being jealous of a classmate who got an invitation.

At its most basic, from what I understand, the dinner is a get-together for the members of the White House Correspondents Association. I agree that if they want the thing to be taken seriously, they should restrict invitations to members of the association. It's hard for me to get riled up generally but about this? Eh.
posted by kat518 at 9:40 AM on April 24, 2015

it feels annoyingly cloying and self-deprecating to call it "nerd prom."

Yeah, it's all A-tablers and B-tablers. The nerds aren't even invited. /highschool
posted by bonehead at 9:57 AM on April 24, 2015

That the WHCD was so clearly embarrassed by one of its best moments suggests that the best and most reasonable way to improve the White House Correspondent's Dinner is to scrap the whole thing

I don't agree. The problem isn't the event; the event throws the real problem into sharp relief.

You don't stop taking canaries into the coal mine because they keep embarrassing you by dying. You do something about the poisonous gas they're revealing.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:02 AM on April 24, 2015 [8 favorites]

A less polite response (link & headline contains coarse language)
posted by 99_ at 10:14 AM on April 24, 2015

Merge it with the National Prayer Breakfast and save the president some schedule space. National Correspondent's Prayer Brunch.

Add a gun control spin to it to form the National Correspondent's Prayer Brady Brunch.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:36 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

slow clap
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:49 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hosted by Lorde. You know, it's the National Correspondent's Lorde's Prayer Brady Brunch.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:53 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

Yeah but you have to hold it at a racetrack. The National Velvet Correspondent's Lorde's Prayer Brady Brunch.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:05 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

If we got some new journalistic blood being trained by remote learning, we could invite them to the National Velvet Correspondent's Course Lorde's Prayer Brady Brunch.
posted by Gelatin at 11:11 AM on April 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Things you may not know about the white house correspondents dinner

While many people think of it as simply a party, the WHCA uses the event (and its pricey tickets) as a fundraiser for a series of scholarships it provides to aspiring journalists. It’s also an opportunity for them to reward their fellow writers with a series of awards for regional and national journalistic excellence in print, broadcast and digital media.

Despite the fact that some of its dues-paying members were women, it took more than 40 years to integrate the dinner. Efforts had been made earlier, and in 1950 Undersecretary of the Navy Dan Kimball had hosted an event for female reporters unable to attend the WHCA party. In 1961, Helen Thomas, a UPI reporter and the first woman to cover the White House, publicly protested the continued exclusion of women. The following year, she pressured President John F. Kennedy into agreeing to boycott that year’s festivities unless women were invited. Kennedy agreed, and the WHCA (which Thomas herself became president of in 1975) allowed female journalists to attend for the first time.

1941: The strangest white house correspondents dinner ever

On Saturday, March 15, 1941, FDR arrived at [the WHCA Dinner] and was greeted by the U.S. Navy Band, which played "Hail to the Chief" . . . Roosevelt laughed at the jokes and sang along when George H. O'Connor crooned. [T]he Navy Band played and the chorus sang. Then came a faux newsreel which included a segment making fun of the Lend-Lease Act debate. It was nine months before Pearl Harbor.

Guests included the vice president, members of the Cabinet, the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, two dozen other lawmakers, as well as top publishers and radio executives, big names from the entertainment and business worlds; the British ambassador; the consular secretary at the German Embassy; and the minister-counselor in the Japanese Embassy.

[A]bout 30 hours earlier FDR had asked to make a nationally broadcast address at the dinner. Three days earlier, he had signed [the] Lend-Lease Act . . . . he wanted to tell the nation — and the world — what it meant. The evening would now be an odd mix of slapstick and earnest talk of war. Although the annual event was opened to live TV coverage in 1993, no White House Correspondents' Dinner has drawn a larger audience.

[After some introductory remarks, FDR said] "This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement in our land, the end of urging us to get along with dictators, the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of opposition. . . . The concepts of 'business as usual,' of 'normalcy,' must be forgotten until the task is finished. Yes, it is an all-out effort, and nothing short of an all-out effort will win." [T]he president called on Americans to "make sacrifices," warning them, "you will feel the impact of this gigantic effort in your daily lives."

Roosevelt then turned the microphone over to emcee Jay Flippen, a vaudevillian, popular singer, Broadway actor, and sometime radio voice of the New York Yankees. . . . [followed by] a magician. A harmonica artist. A flamenco dancer. An opera singer. A blues singer. A comedian. The show lasted a full hour. FDR and the reporters stayed for it all, as the more than 100 million who had heard the radio broadcast absorbed what they had learned.

There would be no dinner in 1942. Instead, there would be war. And many in the correspondents' ranks would be in uniform.

posted by Herodios at 11:31 AM on April 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, shoot, roomthreeseventeen, I missed that item in the FPP. Well, enjoy the magician, flamenco dancer, et al,anyway, and I'll be over here sampling the guinea hen forestière.
posted by Herodios at 11:37 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's like the Christians applauding the lions: 8 ways the Obama administration is blocking information
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:39 AM on April 25, 2015