The Internet Killed the Media Star

European Straits #67

Dear all,

If you follow American politics, you’ve heard about the stir caused by comedian Michelle Wolf at the latest White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner.

If you’ve managed to miss it, let’s quickly sum it up. Every year, the journalists covering the White House gather in Washington, DC for a black-tie dinner with guests. It’s about two things: celebrating freedom of the press (the boring part) and making jokes about politics and especially the President (the part that makes for good clips). Customarily, the President attends the dinner and makes a speech intended to demonstrate a bit of good-humored self-derision, as Barack Obama famously did in 2016. Donald Trump, however, didn’t attend either last year or this year—for complex reasons that include his having been personally ridiculed by Obama at the 2011 edition of the dinner.

And so it was Michelle Wolf that was the main speaker a few nights ago. She dutifully made fun of Trump and his team, as well as Democrats and…