CNN is weighing whether to reduce its presence at next year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner after President Donald Trump used this year’s event to target Kaitlan Collins and other network journalists, according to a new report that highlighted growing unease over the role of Washington’s most high-profile media gathering.
Semafor media reporter Max Tani reported Monday that CNN leadership was “furious” over Trump’s remarks during Friday night’s rescheduled dinner and has since discussed scaling back the network’s participation next year — or skipping the event altogether.
According to Semafor, CNN has traditionally viewed the dinner as an opportunity to celebrate its Washington journalists while avoiding the political statement that could come with boycotting the event. But executives questioned whether attending still makes sense if the evening has become, as one internal discussion framed it, “a platform for making crude remarks at their employees’ expense.”
The concerns reportedly extend beyond CNN.
An executive at another television network told Semafor they shared CNN’s frustration, while a separate Washington media executive argued the White House Correspondents’ Association missed an opportunity to rethink the event after it was postponed from the spring. Instead, the executive said, the association largely recreated the same dinner critics had questioned months earlier, culminating in another headline-grabbing confrontation between the president and the press.
Trump’s speech, which repeatedly targeted Collins once again claiming she “never smiles.” His attack of her, and several other journalists, quickly became one of the night’s defining storylines, overshadowing much of the dinner itself.
The reported internal debate at CNN reflects a broader question facing television news organizations: whether the White House Correspondents’ Dinner remains a celebration of journalism or has evolved into another venue for political spectacle. For networks that send journalists, execs and talent each year, the calculation increasingly extends beyond tradition to whether participation still serves their employees — or simply provides another nationally televised stage for them to become the story.
If CNN ultimately scales back its presence, it could signal a meaningful shift in how major news organizations approach one of the industry’s most visible annual events.
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