Student at White House correspondents’ dinner recounts shooting

WASHINGTON – At the front of the Washington Hilton ballroom, I sat with other White House Correspondents’ Association scholars to prepare for – what many of us considered – one of the biggest nights of our careers.

There was excitement permeating the table as we took photos with our idols and spoke with media giants we thought we’d never meet in our lifetimes. As a student journalist, I was ecstatic. It felt like I was hallucinating a dinner with the most influential figures in national politics, but there I sat. It was an honor to be invited by the association in the first place, so I made sure to make the most of my experience.

The night was a celebration of a complicated relationship between the Trump Administration and the White House press corps – all represented by a dinner that sparked mixed reactions from the public. Before the event, some journalists and media groups called for a demonstration in a letter to the WHCA to oppose “President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.”

But the dinner itself was very collegial. Old friends in the business were reconnecting with one another, and attendees got to network with people from similar fields. It was a night of remembering the community that exists within the world of journalism, all while getting some business cards in the meantime. But this was cut short after the first speeches were made, and the president took his seat.

The shots were faint. I first thought they were drums or someone banging on a trash can. Maybe a protest made its way inside. It wasn’t until the following shots and the evacuation of the cabinet that people started lowering under their tables, and security yelled, “Stay down!”

The first reaction for many of my colleagues, amid our generation’s familiarity with shooting drills, was to duck under the tablecloth and hide until it was safe.

There were several of us either behind the table or around it. But as I looked up to survey the area, all I could see was journalists doing their jobs, holding up their phones and capturing the scene – a photographer with a camera in one hand and a drink in the other.

Security teams rushed right by me and other scholarship winners, evacuating cabinet members from the ballroom. Agents with heavy-duty weapons stood on the stage where the president and the WHCA board had been breaking bread moments earlier. I saw those next to me recording their reactions, while veteran journalists looked toward their devices to find out what happened.

I had a different instinct than my peers. I recognized the shooting came from outside the room, and a friend of mine had left to go to the bathroom a couple of minutes beforehand. I tried to call her to make sure she was safe, between text messages to my family to let them know I was OK. But the ballroom’s notoriously bad cell service made it near impossible to get or receive any information.

All I knew was that somewhere inside the Washington Hilton a shooting took place, I couldn’t contact anyone, and hundreds of journalists on their one night of celebration were back on the clock.

There wasn’t a sense of real danger or worry coming from most of the crowd, but rather confusion. What actually happened? Some of the bigger networks began setting up interviews. Steps from the scholarship students, a reporter did a live shot from one of CNN’s many tables in the room.

My own table was drenched with red wine.

In a room full of journalists, everyone suddenly had the same story to tell but barely any information to report it.

The WHCA President, Weijia Jiang, came back to the podium to reassure the crowd that security had handled the situation and the dinner may resume shortly. There were already discussions about Trump’s TRUTH social post pushing to continue the event. But that optimism was short-lived. The dinner eventually got canceled.

Jiang announced the president would conduct a press briefing at the White House in 30 minutes. Laughter erupted. That’s nearly a mile and a half from the hotel. Security was tight before the shooting, and streets were closed to cars.

Many of the students left the ballroom later than those who rushed to the briefing. Some attendees were grabbing wine bottles from the tables that would have gone to waste. I decided to head home after saying my goodbyes. I didn’t find out until later in the night the details of the shooting or even where it had taken place.

Reporters who arrived on the scene asked those around me for an interview, while those leaving the hotel considered plans to grab a meal somewhere else.

As I walked to the Metro station at Dupont Circle – a roughly 20-minute stroll – rain pattered on my rented tuxedo.

A person with one of the dinner programs told their friend to record me, a 20-year-old student journalist just trying to get home. I kept thinking of the irony, being the one in front of the camera and not behind it.

Note: The author attended the WHCA dinner as a scholarship recipient. He originally wrote this account for his personal Substack and agreed to let Cronkite News publish it.

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