EC Post: It's No Joke

Over this past weekend, the White House Correspondents Dinner took place in Washington D.C. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, is to honor the journalists who work with White House, and to poke fun at the press and administration. This event has been around for what seems like forever and historically has been criticized for publicizing and “cozy” relationship between the press and the administration - now if you don't live under a rock and read the news or even twitter once and a while, you probably bursted out laughing at that last part. The President and the news cozy?? Hah! If you look back you’ll see that I conveniently added the “historically” to that bit. 

Its no secret that our commander in chief has ALOT of things to say about the press, and overall he despises them - that is what made this years dinner so much more interesting. The dinner typically celebrates the freedom of the press, and even more so this year freedom of speech. Senior correspondent Hasan Minhaj, several times pointed out that Donald Trump loves to use his right of free speech to rant on twitter, or tear down the press - but what he doesn't like is when others (specially those in the media) use theirs to do the same to him. It may seem as if this is a very serious event, and it a sense, it is. But Hasan made several points about Trump’s failings. They all resonated with me at the end of the day, not because of the seriousness of the issues, but because he framed them all in witty jokes. This delivery is an important tool because it allows him to reach an audience he typically might not (those who don't care to hear about dry political issues). Furthermore the fact he is making jokes about the current state of the union is extremely ironic - the allegations that Trump is in bed with Russia or an impending war with North Korea is anything but funny. In a world where everything is competing for out attention, this is an inventive way to get it. I think the intention with these dinners and many comedy news shows is gain your attention by shocking you - shocking you with jokes about real national crisis.  

It may seem petty and childish to attack the administration this way, or some people may think its pointless because they are “just jokes” but i think this is a powerful way to inform the masses, however politically biased it may be. Either way everyone is going to see it in their feeds, whether it be liberal papers praising it, or the far right condemning it. The filter bubble can keep it out of your way.