BY EDDIE SCARRY | APRIL 10, 2015 | 12:44 PM
Reporters in the national press are all in bed with their powerful government sources, and that is proven each year during White House Correspondents’ Dinner week. That’s the conclusion of a new documentary directed by a former reporter at one of Washington, D.C.’s biggest news publications.
Patrick Gavin, who most recently worked as a journalist for Politico until leaving in 2014, chronicles in his film the evolution of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner from a small annual gathering of journalists and West Wing officials in the 1920s to the multimillion dollar week-long power-jockeying event it has become today.
“Nerd Prom: Inside Washington’s Wildest Week” is an indictment of the incestuous culture fostered by the Capitol’s elite journalists and the government officials they’re supposed to be holding accountable. In Gavin’s view, this connection is encapsulated by the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Gavin says in the movie that he created it to find out what the annual event is truly about. By the end, he’s bemoaning the loss of the dinner’s meaning, which is produced by the White House Correspondents’ Association and was originally intended to celebrate press freedom, as well as serve as a scholarship award ceremony for aspiring journalists.
