For Journalists, Annual Dinner Serves Up Catharsis and Resolve -<br />By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMAPRIL 30, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — Toward the end of his comic opus on the press, politics<br />and President Trump, the “Daily Show” comedian Hasan Minhaj looked out at the hundreds of journalists gathered in a subterranean hotel ballroom here on Saturday night and declared, “This has been one of the strangest events I have ever done in my life.”<br />The lengthy laughter and applause that followed made clear that he was not the only one who thought that way.<br />“We’re actually here to encourage the journalists,” said Julie Locascio, who lives in the Washington area<br />and held a handwritten sign reading, “Journalists are not enemies of the people but friends of freedom.”<br />As reporters in formal wear walked by, she called out, “We need you in those trenches!”<br />“I’ve been coming to this dinner for many years,” he said at a pre-dinner cocktail reception hosted by CBS News.<br />Mr. Trump raised the tension of the evening with his Pennsylvania rally, an event designed to underscore the contrast between tuxedoed Washington journalists celebrating themselves<br />and the blue-collar supporters at his rally — “hard-working Americans,” as one senior administration official put it.<br />At one point, Mr. Mason recited the text of the amendment onstage, and an introductory video took pains to showcase clashes between previous presidents and the press, demonstrating<br />that the news media’s adversarial relationship with the presidency — which Mr. Mason called “healthy” — did not start with Mr. Trump.<br />But even as Mr. Trump heckled the proceedings in real time — joking at a Pennsylvania rally about reporters’ “consoling<br />each other in a Washington ballroom” — attendees said the often-frivolous dinner felt oddly profound.
