This coming Saturday, the lavish annual gala, the White House Correspondents Dinner, takes place, headlined by "The Daily Show" player Roy Wood Jr. The crowd will be packed as this year is the first without any Covid restrictions. (Last year, same-day tests were required, and a number of people avoided the affair for superspreader concerns.) The people who try to act self-deprecating and refer to the event as "The Nerd Prom" are busy angling for the pre-parties staged all week, where they fight for admittance and then pretend it is all a casual bother.
The intention of the event is to have the WHCA promote the First Amendment, a noble claim that is completely compromised by the months spent by most news outlets cheering for Fox News to be brought down in its defamation suit. Yes, the people who have been using the cudgel of "disinformation" as a means of silencing voices are going to preen as if free expression is their most cherished standard.
Making this more of a mockery is a recent move taken by the WHCA to strip away a historical name from its roster of awards that are handed out at The Dinner. Last year, it was voted upon to rename the honor presented for best work seen with breaking news, awarded to both print and electronic media members. Formerly called the Merriman Smith Award, last year it was rechristened "The WHCA Award For Excellence In Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure." The change was a result of the WHCA falling prey to reassessing its history in the name of sensitivity.
The reason given was that after some murmuring about Merriman Smith possibly having a "problematic past," an investigation into Smith's history was conducted. What they found was some stances the historic White House correspondent held decades ago that reflect poorly by today's woke standards. It seems Smith, at times, lobbied against having women and blacks join the inner circle of correspondents, adhering to the standards of the day and looking to preserve the "old boys club" atmosphere.
While these positions are uncomfortable by today's standards, they were not unthinkable in his era. In the 1940s and 50s, these were not radical positions. It also needs to be highlighted that Smith did not initially write these rules and could not have been the only person to enforce them. Those had been in place. But now, WHCA clearly decided it would bend the knee to the new mentality of judging past indiscretions and remove the name from the award after 50 years.
Looking back and deciding to erase the legacy of an esteemed journalist is an example of modern wokeness being applied. It is an undiluted case of allowing contemporary pettiness to override historical significance. This is shown by the fact that this is a media institution essentially admitting it never looked into the past of one of its figures; journalists declaring they had not done the research. It is clearly belittling its own mandate.
This award ostensibly recognizes journalism excellence, and the naming of it after the man called "Smitty" was based on the accomplishments of an individual. It was not a declaration for reporters to "be like Merriman Smith in a personal fashion." Look at the WHCA's own description of the honor prior to erasing Smith's name: "The…award was conceived to perpetuate Mr. Smith's memory and to promote the excellence he brought to his profession."
And today, the organization does neither of those, over modern woke standards.
Merriman Smith was the epitome of what White House correspondents are thought to become. He worked as a White House reporter for decades. He was most known for the initial wire notices he filed regarding the President John F. Kennedy assassination. Smith was able to get the first wire service reports out about the shooting and was directly present for that entire day's events.
As Bill Sanderson explained in his book, "Bulletins From Dallas: Reporting the JFK Assassination," while Walter Cronkite is regarded as the face of the news breaking that fateful day, the TV newsman was actually reading the reports filed by Smith in as close to real-time as possible in 1963:
Many people think Cronkite broke the news of President Kennedy’s assassination. But Cronkite got the news from dispatches by Merriman Smith, UPI’s star reporter and chief White House correspondent. Smith put the news on the UPI wire five minutes before the Associated Press — a big victory in an era when AP and UPI competed story-for-story.
Smith was riding in Kennedy's motorcade in Dealey Plaza as a pool reporter, four cars behind the president in what was called the "wire car," reserved for the White House wire reporters. This one was provided by AT&T, as it was outfitted with a radiotelephone that gave two-way connections to a local operator's exchange. Driven by a company man, Smith was in the middle of the front seat, next to Kennedy's press secretary.
Smith was straddling the radiotelephone as the shots rang out. Most were confused, but Merriman recognized what was happening. As Sanderson explains, some thought the noise was firecrackers, "But Smith was a gun nut — he owned several guns and rifles. He knew it was gunfire." He grabbed the phone, contacted the UPI office, and began barking dispatches from the car. The Associated Press reporter in the back seat fought for his chance at the phone, but Smith would not relinquish the receiver.
They instructed the driver to swerve around Vice President Lyndon Johnson's car and those of two Secret Service vehicles in order to follow the presidential limousine to the hospital. When they pulled up, Smith got out and saw Kennedy and Governor John Connely wounded in the back. A known SS agent informed Smith in the parking lot that Kennedy had died.
Inside the hospital, Smith grabbed a phone and continued sending updates. After official word of Kennedy's death, Smith was urged to immediately join staff on Air Force One – Lyndon Johnson was to be sworn in as president on the flight back to D.C. On the tarmac, Smith got to a bank of pay phones to file another update before racing onto the presidential plane. Smith gave nearly instant reports, scooped the competition, and fed the TV anchors historic dispatches for which they became famous.
Despite this, the WHCA wanted to erase the amazing work it had honored for decades. Smith was revered for more than just that day's accomplishments. He spent decades as a White House reporter, where he won the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He wrote five books on the presidency and his work, and he twice served as the president of the WHCA. His Pulitzer-winning report for UPI remains a gripping read.
The shallowness of this decision reeks of modern appeasement eclipsing recognized achievement. As Paul Farhi described it after the announcement last year, you feel the triviality: "The decision is a small but symbolic reassessment of a legendary journalist and is in keeping with recent reappraisals of other notable historical figures."
In a statement given after the decision, WHCA President Steven Portnoy does not help their case:
After 50 years of recognizing Merriman Smith’s contribution to journalism, the board felt the time was right to retire his name on our deadline reporting award. Smith’s record of distinguished reporting under deadline pressure continues to serve as a template for us all. But some elements of his legacy do not reflect the current values of the association nor its dedication to a diverse and inclusive press corps.
Can you be more mealy-mouthed and dismissive? "Some elements" are cited for failing to "reflect current values," and for that, you entirely devalue decades of work and accomplishments?
If the WHCA is prone to revisionist history, then maybe it should look at recent honorees of the former Merriman Smith Award. In 2018, a group of journalists from CNN was honored, including Jim Sciutto, Carl Bernstein, Evan Perez, and – possibly the most decorated – Jake Tapper. (While at ABC News, Tapper won the Merriman Smith Award three years running.) In choosing this group, the WHCA explained it was for their work on the now deeply discredited aspect of the Russian collusion storyline:
These four journalists and a number of other CNN reporters broke the story that the intelligence community had briefed President Barack Obama and then-President-elect Donald Trump that Russia had compromising information about Trump. The CNN team later reported that then-FBI Director James Comey personally briefed Trump about the dossier. Thanks to this CNN investigation, “the dossier” is now part of the lexicon. The depth of reporting demonstrated in these remarkable and important pieces, and the constant updates as new information continued to be uncovered showed breaking news reporting at its best.
As is expressed frequently on social media, this aged poorly. But since the WHCA is now looking at past discrepancies and making a contemporary judgment, would it not stand to reason that this award should be altered or rescinded? After all, if Merriman Smith's career could be expunged over modern sensibilities being offended, should not the revelation of false reporting mean that awarding this honor could also be erased?
But as we have seen – for instance, with Pulitzer Prize honors remaining for now-discredited work – journalism overlords are very reticent to correct the record. It seems just fine for these authorities to place personal character on trial, but professional misbehavior is something they will not address.