Demonstrators descended upon the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, criticizing attendees for “break[ing] bread” with President Joe Biden, who continues to support Israel in its siege on Gaza.
“While you dine, people die,” one protester yelled at groups of black-tie Beltway insiders, mainly well-connected journalists and politicians, as they walked past police cars and a barricade to enter the dinner at the Washington Hilton.
The unfurling of a Palestinian flag from a top-floor window covering the side of the hotel brought cheers from the crowd, though it was taken in moments later.
CODEPINK, a feminist activist organization, called on locals to join them in “shutting down” the dinner to “honor Palestinian journalists.”
"The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, traditionally a symbol of journalistic integrity and freedom, has now become a platform that celebrates and endorses the administration’s actions," Code Pink posted on its website.
Suzanne Kianpour, the CEO of women-focused digital brand Helmet to Heels and creator and host of the BBC podcast “Women Building Peace,” said this was the largest protest she’s seen in her 11 years attending the dinner.
“I'm glad to see that support for journalists is high, but I also think it’s important to not beat up on the journalists who are doing their jobs and telling the stories of the people inside Gaza, even though [they] can’t get inside Gaza,” Kianpour told The Eagle before attending the dinner.
Kianpour said she doesn’t believe attending the event indicates support for any policy decisions.
“It means we’re here because it is our job to speak truth to power and hold the government and hold people in power accountable, which is what happens at these things because you mix and mingle with journalists and other officials and you question them,” she continued.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
Many demonstrators cited 130 such deaths or more, a figure from the Gaza government media office. Reporters Without Borders, a French nonprofit, said online that Israeli strikes have killed at least 103 journalists.
“How many more journalists have to die before you call it a genocide?” protesters asked as the red carpet reception began.
Attendees walked south down Connecticut Avenue to enter the event, trying to avoid protesters who intercepted dressed-up journalists and government officials as they entered the dinner in a tactic known as bird-dogging.
Many of the protesters wore navy blue shirts emblazoned on the front with “PRESS” to signify journalists who have died in Gaza. They shouted “Shame” or chanted, “Every time the media lies, a journalist in Gaza dies.”
Organizers staged a recreation of Israeli bombings on Gaza with participants in faux press gear covered in red paint alongside others blindfolded and stripped of their clothes, symbolizing Palestinians and reporters. A participant dressed in military gear with the Israeli flag on their vest threw blue chalk “bombs” and yelled, “Israel is our [f-ing] land.”
Michael Beer, the director of the nonprofit Nonviolence International, which was founded in part by American University professors in 1989, called on journalists to “do their jobs” and to “stop kowtowing to the White House.”
“We’re here to call on the media to speak up for freedom of the press at a media event,” Beer told The Eagle. “The media here have been silent about 133 or 140 — we don’t know exactly — journalists who have been killed, many of them with U.S. weapons.”
Beer said the “vast majority of mainstream media has been quite silent about the killing of journalists,” especially compared to the coverage of imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia.
“One person versus 133, whatever it is, journalists in Palestine, including at least some Americans,” Beer said. “The comparison is so extreme in terms of the amount of coverage.”
Kelly O’Donnell, the president of the correspondents’ association, was one of the dinner’s only speakers who acknowledged deaths in Gaza, The Associated Press reported.
Biden did not make any mention of the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, according to the AP.
“Journalism is clearly not a crime. Not here, not there, not anywhere in the world,” said Biden in his speech given at the dinner.
He also promised that he would not give up until all imprisoned U.S. journalists were brought home but did not make any recognition of the deaths of journalists in Gaza.
Elise Ferrer, an AU Anthropology master’s student, said it has been frustrating to see neglectful reporting when covering the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“As a photographer and as an anthropologist, I feel really called to be here and say that other people in the media don’t support and condemn the kinds of complicity of the U.S. media as the U.S. is [continuing to] ... commit genocide on the Palestinians,” Ferrer said.
A little over a mile away, the encampment of protesters at George Washington University enters its fourth day Sunday, joined by multiple other student organizations from D.C., Maryland and Virginia, including from AU.
One of the activists and organizers who led a die-in outside the dinner, Hazami Barmada, told The Eagle she is in complete solidarity with the participating students.
“You have a lot of people that just care about career security and income stability, and unfortunately, a way to preserve that is to appease to the status quo,” Barmada said. “What we’re seeing with these encampments is students are saying, ‘We are completely okay jeopardizing our career chances.’”
“Student campuses should be teaching us free thinking, freedom of speech, curiosity, integrity, the very things that are unfortunately lacking in all the buildings around us right now,” Barmada said.
Izzy Fantini contributed reporting.
This article was edited by Abigail Hatting, Zoe Bell, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Isabelle Kravis and Sarah Clayton.
