February 3, 2023
‘The Daily Show’s’ Roy Wood Jr. Set to Host 2023 White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Daily Show correspondent and podcast host, Roy Wood Jr., will host the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner on April 29, the organization announced Thursday.
According to a press release, the comedian — whose stand-up special Imperfect Messenger is now streaming on Paramount+ — studied broadcast journalism at Florida A&M University in the late 1990s, and has a special passion for news.
Wood’s late father, Roy Wood Sr., was a radio and television journalist who covered landmark moments, including the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe civil war, and was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
“It’s an honor to be a part of a long-running tradition of celebrating those members of the media, who work so hard to uncover the truth, and hold our government accountable,” Wood Jr., 44, said in the WHCA release.
“It will be a great night that will go down in the history books, or not, depending on which state you live in.”
Last year’s dinner was hosted by former Daily Show host Trevor Noah, and marked a return to star-power for the gathering, which had avoided entertainers in the wake of comedian Michelle Wolf‘s turn as host in 2018, which some critics argued went too far in mocking then-President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
The annual correspondent’s dinner traces back to 1921 and has historically been attended by members of the association, as well as high-ranking government officials, including the president and first lady.
Under Trump, however, that tradition changed. Trump’s Administration began avoiding the event after Wolf’s turn as emcee in 2018. Like comedians before her, she bluntly mocked several D.C. players, including former Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The 2020 and 2021 WHCA events were canceled, meanwhile, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the first three years of his term, Trump snubbed the gathering, telling reporters in 2019 that it was “too negative.”