Global Courant 2023-04-30 08:26:17
WASHINGTON — Speaking Saturday at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, President Joe Biden pledged to continue working toward the release of Americans believed to be wrongly held abroad.
At the annual event, Biden mentioned the plight of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia on MonRchannel 29 and accused of espionage.
“Free press is a pillar, perhaps the pillar, of a free society — not the enemy,” Biden said, contradicting the latest administration’s outlook.
Gershkovich is one of many Americans being held abroad on what U.S. officials consider false charges filed to transform the detainees into what Biden described as “political pawns” and “people as bargaining chips.”
He also spoke about Paul Whelan, a former US Marine imprisoned in Russia for espionage, a charge he denies, and Austin Tice, a former US Marine held captive in Syria since 2012, where he began working as a freelance journalist.
“We keep faith in Austin,” the president said. “We’re not giving up.”
Biden recognized a special guest at the event, Brittney Griner, the professional basketball player who was held in Russia for most of 2022 and then released in December as part of a prisoner exchange with the US.
In Gershkovich’s case, his employer and the Biden administration have denied that he was spying on behalf of the United States. And on April 10, the State Department labeled Gershkovich unlawfully detained.
“Our message tonight is this,” Biden said, “Journalism is not a crime.”
A senior White House official said the president has an “unwavering commitment to bringing home wrongfully detained journalists and other Americans.”
These years comedian was Roy Wood Jr., a correspondent for “The Daily Show”, who spoke about his father’s own work as a journalist and co-founder of radio’s National Black Network
Last year marked the first time a sitting president had attended the program since Barack Obama in 2016.
At the 2022 dinner, Biden spoke joking about themselves and the media for just under 15 minutes.
“I am very excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than me,” Biden joked as he began his remarks.
Biden praised the importance of a free press in his remarks last year.
“It is clear — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — that you, the free press, matter more than at any time in the last century,” Biden said last year.
The history of the famous dinner dates back to 1914, when the White House Correspondents’ Association was founded. The society held its first dinner in 1921, fueling the annual tradition. But it wasn’t until 1924 that the president, then Calvin Coolidge, attended.
Usually, comedians host the event and make fun of the administration and the media.
One of the more notable dinners of White House correspondents was during Biden’s vice presidency in 2011, when Obama and comedian Seth Meyers blasted Donald Trump, who was in the audience.
“Donald Trump has said he will run for president as a Republican,” Meyers said as Trump looked on, seemingly unamused. “Which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running in jest.”
Trump skipped all White House correspondent dinners during his term.
After comedian Michelle Wolf delivered a sizzling 2018 dinner routine targeting the Trump administration, Trump tweeted that “White House correspondents’ dinner is DEAD as we know it.”
The following year, the organization chose to have historian Ron Chernow give a speech instead of a comedian.
