There was no president. There was no comedian. What remained at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner on Saturday night were the journalists and the First Amendment.

The stripped-down festivities were a reflection of the somber tone in Washington at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, in which he has battled with the press on multiple fronts and wrested from the correspondents’ association the power to decide which outlets have the most access to Trump.

Trump’s deeper involvement in politics began after then-President Barack Obama roasted the New Yorker’s presidential ambitions during the 2011 correspondents’ dinner. He skipped the annual gala during his first term, and his absence had been widely expected this year.

The association scrapped a scheduled appearance at this year’s dinner by comedian Amber Ruffin after she referred to the new administration as “kind of a bunch of murderers” on a podcast last month. The organization, a nonprofit that helps White House journalists provide robust coverage of the presidency, decided to forgo the event’s traditional levity and focus on celebrating journalism.

Association President Eugene Daniels said in an email to the organization’s 900 members last month that the dinner was meant to “honor journalistic excellence and a robust, independent media covering the most powerful office in the world.”

The event, which raises money for journalism scholarships, remains a highlight of the Washington social calendar. The ballroom at the Washington Hilton was still packed with journalists, newsmakers and even a few celebrities. Daniels singled out Debra Tice, whose son Austin has been missing for a decade since disappearing in Syria.

“We’ve been tested and attacked. But every single day our members get up, they run to the White House — plane, train, automobile — with one mission, holding the powerful accountable,” Daniels said.

He later showed a video of past presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, who addressed the dinner, saying that the association invites the president to demonstrate the importance of a free press in safeguarding democracy.

Trump counter-programmed the last dinner during his first term, holding a rally to compete with the event in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic canceled the 2020 dinner. This year, Trump had just flown back from Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome and had no events Saturday night.

The Trump administration has had multiple skirmishes with the press in recent months. The FCC is investigating several media companies, the administration is working to shut down Voice of America and other government-run outlets, and The Associated Press has sued the administration for reducing its access to events because it has not renamed the Gulf of Mexico in line with Trump’s executive order.

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the administration to stop blocking the AP from presidential events. In response, the White House adopted a new press policy that gives the administration sole discretion over who gets to question Trump and sharply curtails the access of three news agencies, including AP, that serve billions of readers around the world.

For many years previously, the correspondents’ association determined which news organizations had access to limited space events.

Alex Thompson of Axios, who won The Aldo Beckman Award for his coverage of the coverup of Biden’s decline while in office, addressed complaints from some on the right that the press had gone too soft on the Democrat.

“We — myself included — missed a lot of this story, and some people trust us less because of it,” Thompson told the room of journalists. “We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.”

Saturday’s dinner also recognized the winners of a number of journalism awards, in addition to Thompson. They included:

—The Award for Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure (Print): Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the AP, for reporting on the White House altering its transcript to erase Biden calling Trump supporters “garbage.”

—The Award for Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure (Broadcast): Rachel Scott of ABC News, for her coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

—The Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage by Visual Journalists: Doug Mills of the New York Times, for his photograph of Biden walking under a painting of Abraham Lincoln.

—The Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability: Reuters, for its series on the production and smuggling of the deadly narcotic fentanyl.

—Collier Prize for State Government Accountability: AP for its series, “Prison to Plate: Profiting off America’s Captive Workforce.”

—Center for News Integrity Award: Anthony Zurcher of the BBC for his coverage of the fallout from Biden’s handling of the Gaza War.

NEW YORK — The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump has ordered renamed the Gulf of America.

The reporter, whom the AP would not identify, tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away. Later, a second AP reporter was barred from a late-evening event in the White House Diplomatic Room.

The highly unusual ban, which Trump administration officials had threatened earlier Tuesday unless the AP changed the style on the Gulf, could have constitutional free-speech implications.

Julie Pace, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, called the administration’s move unacceptable.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” Pace said in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

The Trump administration made no immediate announcements about the moves, and there was no indication any other journalists were affected. Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the media. On Friday, the administration ejected a second group of news organizations from Pentagon office space.

Before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump announced plans to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the “Gulf of America” — and signed an executive order to do so as soon as he was in office. Mexico’s president responded sarcastically and others noted that the name change would probably not affect global usage.

Besides the United States, the body of water — named the Gulf of Mexico for more than 400 years — also borders Mexico.

The AP said last month, three days after Trump’s inauguration, that it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico while noting Trump’s decision to rename it as well. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.

AP style is not only used by the agency. The AP Stylebook is relied on by thousands of journalists and other writers globally.

Barring the AP reporter was an affront to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from impeding the freedom of the press, said Tim Richardson, program director of journalism and misinformation for PEN America.

The White House Correspondents Association called the White House move unacceptable and called on the administration to change course.

“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decision,” said Eugene Daniels, WHCA’s president.

This week, Google Maps began using “Gulf of America,” saying it had a “longstanding practice” of following the U.S. government’s lead on such matters. The other leading online map provider, Apple Maps, was still using “Gulf of Mexico” earlier Tuesday but by early evening had changed to “Gulf of America” on some browsers, though at least one search produced results for both.

Trump also decreed that the mountain in Alaska known as Mount McKinley and then by its Indigenous name, Denali, be shifted back to commemorating the 25th president. President Barack Obama had ordered it renamed Denali in 2015. AP said last month it will use the official name change to Mount McKinley because the area lies solely in the United States and Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.

___

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social