Despite the evidence to the contrary, trust the press when they say they are important.

There is a perfect representation for the way our contemporary media complex loves to make themselves part of the news story. Well okay, there is also Jim Acosta, so there are many examples. But one of the events that represents their mirror affection is the annual White House Correspondents Dinner.

This gathering of journos and their acolytes is a little more than an ego gala, and now we see that few others cared as the rating for their even were miserable. Previously it was dubbed the “Nerd Prom”, but since the press took on a contentious posture with President Trump he has elected to avoid attending. While past Presidents felt compelled to join in the affair Trump, being the ultimate non-politician, has felt no desire to heed tradition.

He has spurned the bash for years now, and the journos have been in a snit ever since. They have also been increasingly ignored. The event was covered dutifully on CNN and MSNBC Saturday night, but audiences were not so interested.

The WHCA President Olivier Knox kicked things off in rousing fashion by telling weepy tales about his son being traumatized with fears Donald Trump will put his father in prison, or may not let him back in the country during a family trip. Seriously Mr. Knox, if these woke tales are remotely true we need to talk about the content you are feeding your kid.

Knox’s anecdotes were followed by Keynote speaker Ron Chernow, who is a historian and Presidential biographer. Chernow proved to be a perfect speaker for the event — he was filled with import, hailed the press, scorched the President, and got facts incorrect while he did all of that. He was tailor-made for a journalist cotillion!

However as the media mavens were back-slapping few others cared. The audience numbers were quite dismal. On CNN their airing of the event drew 952,000 total viewers, while at MSNBC they enjoyed only 644,000 pairs of eyes. Fox News meanwhile avoided the event, and their airing of The Greg Gutfeld Show pulled in over one million more viewers than CNN.

He bested the combined audience of the two showings of the Correspondents Dinner, with 1,989,000 total viewers. Just to add to the avoidance misery, over on TNT leftist crank Samantha Bee held her alternative event, the Not The White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Ms. Bee has staged this as a response to the WHCA decision to forgo comedians at their event, after the past two years of speakers bombing.

It is unacceptable that the entertainers who were normally swooned over at these dinners were no longer the centerpiece, so Bee decided that they had to glom onto their share of attention with their own event. Her efforts managed to only attract barely over 700,000 viewers.

It almost seems clear what the WHCA needs to do — hire Greg Gutfeld as their keynote speaker next year! Of course, that will never happen. He appears on the accursed Fox News, and he may not deliver an endless string of bile from the podium. Maybe at the next event they can find an election statistician who could regale the crowd with demographic percentages and precinct metrics for the 2020 election cycle!

(If you desire to bask in the mendacity here is the event in full)