{"id":93704,"date":"2025-03-30T21:44:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T04:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=93704"},"modified":"2025-03-30T21:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T04:44:06","slug":"dc-aint-laughing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2025\/03\/30\/dc-aint-laughing\/","title":{"rendered":"DC Ain&#8217;t Laughing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, the <em>Mark Twain Prize for Comedy <\/em>was presented to <strong>Conan O\u2019Brien <\/strong>at the aforementioned <em>Kennedy<\/em> <em>Center<\/em>.&nbsp; <strong>John Mulaney <\/strong>kicked things off by saying, \u201cWelcome to the <em>Kennedy Center <\/em>\u2013 or as it will be known next week, the <em>Roy Cohn Pavilion <\/em>for big, strong men.\u201d&nbsp; Ouch (that\u2019s what he said!).&nbsp; Many quipped this could be the last <strong>Mark Twain <\/strong>presentation \u2013 certainly one of the last we\u2019ll see on TV (last year, the awards signed a deal to telecast on <em>Netflix<\/em>).&nbsp; This year, the rights for <strong><em>The Kennedy Center Honors <\/em><\/strong>telecast are up for renewal with <em>CBS <\/em>\u2013 which has aired every installment since its inception.&nbsp; However, the ratings have always been disappointing.&nbsp; Throw in the possibility of the evening being hosted by <em>El Presidente <\/em>himself, and it may not be worth the trouble.<\/p>\n<p>As if to underscore the changes in our government, the <em>White House Correspondents\u2019 Association <\/em>has cancelled the tradition of having a comedian at its annual dinner, which takes place on April 26<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp; \u201cThe <em>WHCA <\/em>board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year.&nbsp; At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists,\u201d said WHCA president <strong>Eugene Daniels<\/strong>.&nbsp; I hope <strong>Amber Ruffin <\/strong>had a \u201cpay-or-play\u201d contract.&nbsp; Since they\u2019ve had comics during worse moments (wartime, attack, recession, etc.), it seems to me the focus is on censorship and fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, the Mark Twain Prize for Comedy was presented to Conan O\u2019Brien at the aforementioned Kennedy Center.&nbsp; John Mulaney kicked things off by saying, \u201cWelcome to the Kennedy Center \u2013 or as it will be known next week, the Roy Cohn Pavilion for big, strong men.\u201d&nbsp; Ouch (that\u2019s what he said!).&nbsp; Many quipped this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93705,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93704\/revisions\/93705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}