Donald Trump will not attend White House press dinner

U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would not attend the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, capping a week of tumultuous relations with the press.

“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”, Trump wrote on Twitter.

The news came as relations between the Trump administration and the news media, which he has called the “enemy of the American people” have sunk to new lows, frequently criticising outlets and individual reporters whose coverage he does not like. On Friday, leading outlets including the New York Times, CNN and the Guardian were excluded from a briefing by press secretary Sean Spicer while friendlier conservative organisations were admitted.

Editors of excluded organisations expressed anger, although White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) president Jeff Mason, of Reuters, attempted to calm troubled waters.

The reporters’ group said the April 29 dinner, a high-profile event that draws celebrities, politicians and journalists, said it would ahead despite Trump’s absence.

The dinner “has been and will continue to be a celebration of the First Amendment and the important role played by an independent news media in a healthy republic,” said Jeff Mason, a Reuters White House correspondent who heads the association this year.

“The WHCA takes note of President Donald Trump’s announcement on Twitter that he does not plan to attend the dinner, which has been and will continue to be a celebration of the first amendment and the important role played by an independent news media in a healthy republic.

“We look forward to shining a spotlight at the dinner on some of the best political journalism of the past year and recognizing the promising students who represent the next generation of our profession.”

Ronald Reagan was the last president to sit out the event after he was shot in 1981.

Trump has recently reacted angrily to a series of reports citing anonymous sources in the White House, law enforcement and intelligence agencies about chaos in his administration, alleged contacts between campaign staff and Russian agents, and White House attempts to rebut such reports.

On Friday, the White House excluded several major U.S. news organizations, including some it has criticized, from an off-camera briefing held by the White House press secretary.

Reporters for CNN, The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times and BuzzFeed were not allowed into the session in the office of press secretary Sean Spicer, a decision that drew strong protests.

The event occasionally makes news: in 2011, President Barack Obama delivered a scathing evisceration of Trump, joking that the mogul, who sat stone-faced in the audience, would move on from questioning Obama's citizenship to figuring out “did we fake the moon landing.”