White House Correspondents’ Association ‘exploring alternative dates’ for annual dinner

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) is looking into postponing its high-profile annual dinner.
The dinner is currently scheduled for April 25 at the Washington Hilton hotel, but WHCA President Jonathan Karl, ABC News’s chief White House correspondent, told ITK on Thursday that the organization is “exploring alternative dates” for the event.
“Nothing definitive yet,” Karl said.
It’s the first indication that the journalist-, lawmaker- and celebrity-filled dinner might be delayed due to concerns over the coronavirus. Last week, Karl said the WHCA was “monitoring developments” but had not made any changes to its plans for next month’s dinner.
Countless large-scale events have been postponed or canceled over the pandemic, including this month’s Gridiron Club dinner, the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, and April’s White House Easter Egg Roll, among many others.
Comedian Hasan Minhaj was announced in February as the headliner for this year’s correspondents’ dinner, with “Saturday Night Live’s” Kenan Thompson tapped as the soiree’s host.
There have been more than 9,400 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States as of Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, with at least 150 deaths in the country.
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