Every journalist loves telling war stories. On February 26, 2022, for example, I woke up on the lobby floor of the Kharkiv Palace Hotel in eastern Ukraine to a security guard nudging me—specifically, the pile of sofa cushions I was sleeping on—and insisting that I go to the underground parking lot before the next wave of Russian missiles hit. The hotel had rented me a room on the seventh floor, but the shelling was so incessant that I thought it would be safer to pull a few cushions off the lobby couch and make a nest for myself in the back of a ground-floor room. So I ended up with a few hours of restless sleep per night, among other thingsinterrupted by sirens and the booming and banging of bullets.
This is a pretty sober story compared to what war reporters experience. Most of my experiences are similar: a few stops at gunpoint at checkpoints, a few machine gun bursts overhead, lots of artillery and rockets hitting close enough to leave me permanently vulnerable to New York’s extremely loud garbage trucks – but never close enough to pose any real danger in the moment. I basically say all of this at every opportunity. Give me half a drink and I’ll start showing off my iPhone gallery of selfies in the flak jacket. Anyone who claims that journalists are not narcissists is lying.
On Saturday evening, a whole new group of journalists got their own story to tell. When Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old game developer and tutor, stormed into the Washington Hilton Hotel with a shotgun and pistol, the capital’s press elite were eating salad at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner – affectionately and derisively known at the same time as the “Nerd Prom.”
Heroes at the salad aisle
The nerds were horrified – and electrified. In the immediate aftermath of the attack and in the days that followed, members of the press exaggerated their brief brush with death into tales of heroism under fire. In The Free Press, a conservative political website founded by current CBS News boss Bari Weiss, her sister Suzy wrote:
“Everyone was shaken, but the men were something else: They were activated. And I don’t mean the obvious heroes of the evening: the law enforcement officers and the Secret Service agent who was shot by the attacker as he dove toward the gunfire. Others, with guns drawn, escorted officers from the room. They acted in an exemplary manner. But they weren’t the only ones.
Lobbyist David Urban beamed as he told us that he had attended West Point, served in the 101st Airborne Division, and simply had no intention of letting anything happen to us. I believed him. (And Bari too, who was shielded from him at the front of the hall, just as I was shielded from Elliot at the back.)
In moments of crisis, something deep in our biology speaks up.”
Self-congratulation instead of reporting
Suzy Weiss’ piece was a more light-hearted take on the attack, commenting on the overall casual demeanor of the men in the room. But almost every other account I’ve read of the evening gives the impression that bullets whistled over the banquet tables – with the only shots fired being buried in walls (and in the body armor of one unfortunate agent) on the floor below. Another FP reporter, Olivia Reingold, commented live on her front-facing iPhone camera while crouched next to her table. “Tip for younger reporters: keep the camera on what’s happening,” author Chris Hooks mocked on Twitter.
The longer the evening lasted, the more extensive the self-congratulation became. Journalists praised each other for walking to the subsequent press conference in evening clothes, for carrying on with their jobs under enormous pressure, and for generally being present and better dressed than usual – while a man so disgusted by the current state of affairs that he tried to kill the sitting president failed miserably. The president also praised the press – only to praise his leadership instincts in the heat of the moment in a soft-focus “60 Minutes” interview the following day. In short: everyone went home with a good feeling.
The Correspondents’ Dinner has been criticized for years precisely because of this friendly fraternization. The most common accusation is simple: It looks bad when an organization that supposedly acts as a check on the nation’s most powerful office hosts an annual dinner in honor of that very office – with jokes, drinks and the inevitably mediocre food of any event with more than 25 guests. CBS, for example, invited both Trump mastermind Stephen Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who regularly attack the press, as official guests of the network. Donald Trump attended the event for the first time as president – a pretty clear signal of how the WHCA feels about him. At the Nerd Prom, the president can be king.
Proximity is no purpose
Which brings us, in a roundabout way, back to the war stories. The problem with the WHCD and the problem with war stories are essentially the same. As a foreign correspondent you have access to something fascinating and horrific and powerful: violence. The job involves moments of loss and pain and fear and tremendous human courage – alongside things so nihilistic and cruel that you wonder how this species ever survived the era when we bludgeoned each other to death. It’s exhilarating. It makes you feel important and interesting. The colleagues take photos of someone in a flak jacket and khaki clothing.
As a political reporter, you get a certain version of the same feeling. Like war, political reporting gives you a certain closeness to the fascinating inner workings of power. You get lanyards and accreditations instead of Kevlar, sure – but the everyday circumstances of the work suggest that you are someone important and valuable. Otherwise they wouldn’t let you in, right?
But as in war, the same fallacy lies here. Proximity to something is not a purpose. You’re not in the room to take a photo with the president, you’re not in the war to look cool. You’re there to do a job – and if you don’t do that job, you’re just a tourist in a war zone or in the White House. The point of being close to power is to examine it and judge the people who wield it. You want to find the people who are crushed by it – the little people who bury soldiers and presidents under their boots or black loafers.
Asking the wrong questions
When someone shoots the president, it is not the job of the press to praise his heroism and determination because he was quickly escorted out of a room by a squad of armed men – or to celebrate one’s fortitude because he took cover under a table. It’s about finding out why an educated office worker got so fed up that he decided to tear up every last shred of the social fabric in which we live. The point is to examine why exactly this Event chose why he exactly this targeted the target. And perhaps it’s time to take an honest look at what your participation in a gilded celebration of a violent regime says about the job you claim to be doing. If these answers scare you, you may want to consider another career.
