Trump tweets refusal to attend White House correspondents’ dinner

United States President Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce that he will not attend the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner this year. His decision was not surprising according to White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) president Jeff Mason.

“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!” the president tweeted.

Trump’s announcement came one day after Mason said they were "protesting strongly" against the White House's decision to exclude some news outlet from an informal press briefing. White House press secretary Sean Spicer has earlier announced that reporters of The New York Times, Politico, the Los Angeles Times, CNN and BuzzFeed were excluded into the session.

"That of course is something that the correspondents' association and journalists reject. The media is an incredibly important part of a vibrant republic, and we celebrate that at that dinner,” he said.

Mason told CNN on Saturday that Trump's decision to not attend the WHCA dinner, a gathering of celebrities, politicians and journalists, should not come as a surprise given the negative comments he said against the media. The president had earlier said that the media are "the enemy of the American people."

The WHCA president recognised it is up to Trump to decide if he will attend the event or not. Regardless, he assured that they will continue to do their job. The correspondents' association and it members, Mason said, will continue to write news and tell the truth about the government as what they have done to the previous administrations.

Moreover, Mason called the event as a “celebration of the First Amendment and the important role played by an independent news media in a healthy republic". In a statement, he said WHCA is looking forward to its annual dinner in spite of the president’s decline to attend. Meanwhile, a number of news organisations had reportedly withdrawn from the WHCA dinner to express protest of the president’s treatment of the media.

The WHCA dinner takes place every spring, in which president, journalists, celebrities and Washington insiders are usually present. CNN noted that the last US president who missed the said event was Ronald Reagan. Reagan was then recovering from an assassination attempt in 1981, but still delivered remarks via phone.

Per the organisation’s website, the first WHCA dinner took place in 1921 and Calvin Coolidge was the first president to attend in 1924. The WHCA dinner this year will be held on April 29 in Washington.