Veteran NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw on Sunday said Washington’s annual White House Correspondents’ dinner has become a symbol of a press that is increasingly out of touch. “If there’s ever an event that separates the press from the people they’re supposed to be serving, symbolically, it is that one. It is time to rethink it,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“Look I think George Clooney is a great guy, I’d like to meet Charlize Theron, but I don’t think the big press event in Washington should be that kind of glittering event, where the whole talk is about Cristal champagne, taking over the Italian embassy, who had the best party, who got to meet the most people. That’s another separation between what we’re supposed to be doing and what the people expect us to be doing, and I think that the Washington press corps has to look at that, and by the way I’m a charter member of the White House Correspondents Association, I was there early on and often enjoyed it, but it’s gone beyond what it needs to be.”
