Stephen Colbert at The 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner - Allegations of A Media Blackout

Allegations of A Media Blackout

Some commentators, while noting the popularity of Colbert's dinner speech, were indignant at the perceived snubbing he was receiving from the press corps, even though he was the featured entertainer for the evening. The Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin, calling it "The Colbert Blackout", lambasted the traditional media for ignoring Colbert while focusing on the "much safer" topic of President Bush's routine with Bridges. Media Matters was especially critical of the television news coverage. They reported that ABC's This Week, NBC's Sunday Today, the NBC Nightly News, the morning shows of the three major networks, and CNN's American Morning all focused on Bush's skit and "ignored Colbert entirely". Media Matters also contrasted the lack of coverage Colbert received to the extensive coverage that Don Imus drew for his controversial insults of Bill Clinton at the 1996 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner. Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin remarked, "It's too hot to handle. was scathing toward Bush and it was absolutely devastating. know how to handle such a pointed and aggressive criticism."

Others saw no intentional snub of Colbert by the press. Responding to a question about why The Washington Post's article about the dinner did not go into any detail about Colbert's speech, Media Backtalk writer Howard Kurtz responded, "The problem in part is one of deadline. The presses were already rolling by the time Colbert came on at 10:30, so the story had to be largely written by then." Asked why television news favored Bush's performance over Colbert's, Elizabeth Fishman, an assistant dean at the Columbia School of Journalism and a former 60 Minutes producer, told MTV that the "quick hit" for television news shows would have been to use footage of Bush standing beside his impersonator. "It's an easier set up for visual effect", she noted. Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents' Association (which hosted the dinner) and political editor of C-SPAN (which broadcast the dinner), scoffed at the whole idea of the press intentionally ignoring Colbert: "Bush hit such a home run with Steve Bridges that he got all of the coverage. I think that exceeded expectations. There was no right-wing conspiracy or left-wing conspiracy." Time columnist Ana Marie Cox dismissed allegations of a deliberate media blackout, because Colbert's performance received coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the major wire services. Fellow commentator Kurtz concurred, noting that the video was carried on C-SPAN and was freely available online; he also played two clips on his own show. "Apparently I didn't get the memo," he said.

In an article published on May 3, 2006, The New York Times addressed the controversy. The paper acknowledged that the mainstream media—itself included—had been criticized for focusing on Bush's act with Bridges while ignoring Colbert's speech. The paper then quoted several passages of Colbert's more substantial criticism of the president and discussed various reactions to the event. On May 15, The New York Times' public editor, Byron Calame, wrote on his blog that more than two hundred readers had written to complain about the exclusion of any mention of Colbert from the paper's initial lengthy article covering the dinner. Calame quoted his deputy bureau chief in Washington, who said that a mention of Colbert in the first article could not have been long enough to do his routine justice. But he also noted that the paper should have printed an in-depth article specifically covering Colbert's speech in the same issue, rather than waiting until days after the fact.