"Olivier Knox, the outgoing president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, the organization of journalists who cover the White House, decried 'attacks on the free press in a global context' and listed the names of journalists targeted by governments and other forces."

More like "cover for." This association is effectively of, by, and for the White House. Has there ever been a member of this association ever who was a citizen of a nation in a cold or a hot war with the USA? A citizen of another nation at all?

Excellent piece. Sharp and to the point. 9/11 and everything after changed everything where truth is concerned. The stupid son said it ' you're either with us or against us ' . So it has come to pass. Any journalism worth calling journalism is only being done by those ostracised by the toady mainstream . Forget ' fake news ' that's so last year. Get your critical antennae in first rate order to discern what has the ring of truth about it.

When the attendees at this dinner celebrated the First Amendment, what they were really applauding was the fact that it allows them to continue to lie to the American people, like about non-existent chemical attacks and the need to illegally bomb Middle Eastern countries for "human rights."

Ironically, all those oral prostitutes for oligarchic ruling elite in their MSM fake news and false class conscience factories for $billion a day, are right to celebrate First Amendment to US constitution.

1stA was specifically designed to suppress voice of the people (as was entire constitution to prevent any sort of democratic populist government ), namely reserving absolute monopoly and independence of private/corporate media from any sort of scrutiny of democratic government or by population at large.

1stA posits freedom of press as institution only, not general freedom of equal access to information and equal access to the people who might be interested in such information under free, equal and equitable speech rules .

The press supposedly is given broad right to freedom of dissemination of information that materially impact population with no responsibility or accountability to the people whatsoever.

There is no reciprocal obligation to providing truthful, material and relevant information about communities, social and political institutions and to enforce transparency of democratic government affairs.

In fact it was Press/MSM original lie to peddle that FA is right of the people to free speech but it never was.

In last few years the veil of this gigantic lie was shed and the truth of true motivation of 1stA was revealed with MSM becoming openly shameless oral prostitutes paid by oligarchic ruling elite, defending this abhorrent US imperial regime of exploitation and war with nothing but intellectual vomit and vicious attacks on those like Assange and Manning and other journalists and whistleblowers who do their journalistic duty to the people, to suffering communities who have right to known extend of crime and exploitation they are subjected to and all the lies they are exposed to by ruling elite trying to hold on to power and to suppress socialist revolution.

This is what they are celebrating, their own moral decay under protections of 1stA.

This phenomenon is analogous to the way some of the pseudo left sites like to cover the abuses of past US military and intelligence operations in Vietnam or Chile while ignoring those of more recent ones like Honduras or Libya and current ones like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, etc.

It is shameful for the WH Correspondent's dinner not to mention the potential threat to freedom of the press if Assange is lynched on trumped up charges of hacking.

But the WH correspondents caved to the White House's complaints when lyin' Huckabee Sanders was roasted and stoped the tradfitional roasts.

I watch Samantha Bee's "Not the WH COrrespondent's Dinner". Where the roasting tradition continued.

After all, Sander testified under oath that she made up the story for Trump, that the FBI memebers told her they loved Trump firing Comey. (The testimony is in the Mueller Report...Even the summaries, which take less than an hour to read, has this info.)

Surely such liberal talk show hosts such as Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Seth Myers, and Jimmy Kimmel will denounce the timidity of those who spoke at the White House Correspondents Dinner concerning the persecution of Julian Assange. Unfortunately expecting those alleged bastions of liberalism to speak out on behalf of Assange would be a grave mistake steeped in delusion and an exercise in futility. Thinking that they would condemn what has happened to Assange is about as likely as any of them having a guest on their show who would actually support the former Wikileaks publisher.

You are only a persecuted journalist if you receive troubles by a none "Western" country. If America is doing it then obviously the journalist is not a journalist and that person obvious is richly deserving of the trouble they receive.

How does the working class approach this yearly affair? Well from this example....years ago George W Bush was invited to speak and he did so either by prerecorded video or a live stream from the Oval Office....In the video he is seen lifting up various pieces of furniture and then saying something to the effect , nope , no WMD here.... A reference to the US not finding and WMDs in Iraq.......the journalist in the audience laughed.....

That about sums that debauchery of an event up. And why Julian and Chelsea will never be mentioned by at it.

I remember that!

.". Chernow reminded listeners that the U.S. had survived major mistakes before: the Scottsboro Boys, the Japanese internment camps, Joseph McCarthy"
-cnn
Yet it's no error that Chernow failed to include "Russiagate", which is a new McCarthyism, metoo which operates in the spirit of the Scottsboro lynch mob, or Gitmo, our contemporary internment camps, all of these supported by upper middle class liberal establishment that Chernow speaks for!

White House correspondents are “Celebrating the First Amendment" but notably excludes journalists, publishers, and whistleblowers who reveal war crimes, political corruption, and any information that genuinely offers resistance or is a threat to the military/ security/surveillance/corporate state.

They need to lie to themselves.....that is how the scum make it through the day.

I laughed out loud 3 times while reading this article. Reading the words of these self satisfied cowards and stenographers of mass murder... It’s like witnessing the very essence of contradiction manifesting into physical reality. I would’ve thought the entire article was a satire from The Onion if it didn’t appear in the WSWS feed. These people and everything that they say are a joke and they should be treated as such. I wish I knew someone who attended this laughable farce... I would tell them they were a coward right to their face and challenge them, about Assange and their role as a palace stenographer in this attack on REAL journalism.