US President Joe Biden used his time at the lectern in front of a room full of 3,000 media hounds and A-list celebrities at the Washington Hilton on Saturday to call on foreign governments to “immediately” release journalists held captive.
The comments came on Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
“Journalism is clearly not a crime. Not here, not there, not anywhere in the world,” Biden said.
The presumptive Democratic nominee said Russian President Vladimir Putin should release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who was detained in Russia on March 29, 2023 while doing his job as a journalist, according to the paper.
Biden then called for the release of freelance reporter Austin Tice who was taken hostage in 2012 in Syria. Last year Biden said “with certainty” the veteran Marine Corps officer was being held by the “Syrian regime” – a claim Damascus fervently denies.
Calls come amid humour
The mood shifted, however, as the serving president also used his 10 minute speech to poke fun at himself and his presumptive Republican running mate, former US President Donald Trump.
“The 2024 election is in full swing. And yes, age is an issue. I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old,” Biden said.
“Trump’s so desperate, he started reading those Bibles he’s selling. Then he got to the first commandment: ‘you shall have no other gods before me’. That’s when he put it down and said, this book’s not for me.”
Trump did not attend Saturday’s dinner and never attended the annual banquet as president. In 2011, he sat in the audience, and glowered through a roasting by then-President Barack Obama of Trump’s reality-television celebrity status.
Obama’s sarcasm then was so scalding that many political watchers linked it to Trump’s subsequent decision to run for president in 2016.
Slain Gaza journalists mentioned, media criticised
Biden’s speech made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Kelly O’Donnell, president of the correspondents’ association, briefly noted some 100 journalists killed in Israel’s six-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza.
But hundreds of protesters draped in keffiyeh resistance scarfs blocked the entryway into the media dinner to condemn the Biden administration’s handling of the war as well as mainstream media’s alleged under-coverage and misrepresentation.
Crowds chanted, “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” while other protesters lay sprawled motionless on the pavement, next to mock-ups of flak vests with “press” insignia.
Leading global media association, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), claim 102 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in the ongoing Hamas-Israel war as of April 4.
“Since the initial attack the IFJ has called for the release of all hostages, for the opening of Gaza to international reporters, and Israel to respect international law that requires combatants to safeguard journalists,” the IFJ states online.
