Demonstrators are protesting media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner attended by President Biden, top government officials and journalists who cover them.
Protestors are criticizing President Biden’s administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and mainstream media’s coverage of the conflict.
Chants of “Free, free Palestine” and calls for a “ceasefire” can be heard near the Washington Hilton where the dinner takes place, according to videos posted on social media.
The feminist grassroots group Code Pink plans to “shut down” the dinner in protest, alleging it has “become a platform that celebrates and endorses the administration’s actions.”
“The United States media perpetuates anti-Palestinian narratives and ignores Israeli war crimes, the group said. “The Correspondents’ Dinner is nothing more than a celebration and endorsement of the administration’s actions. That is not journalism. That is complicity.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists said that at least 97 reporters and media workers have been killed since the conflict began on Oct. 7 following Hamas’ terrorist attack on southern Israel.
A group of Palestinian reporters penned an open letter in April where they urged reporters to boycott the dinner as “an act of solidarity with us — your fellow journalists.”
“The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an embodiment of media manipulation, trading journalistic ethics for access,” they continued. “For journalists to fraternize at an event with President Biden and Vice President Harris would be to normalize, sanitize, and whitewash the administration’s role in genocide.”
The dinner has long been criticized for intermixing journalists and people they are tasked to cover.