President Joe Biden plans to address the plight of wrongfully detained journalists in his remarks on Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., according to a Politico report citing an unnamed administration official.
Biden’s audience is expected to include the relatives of two imprisoned journalists, as the parents, sister and brother-in-law of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich are due to attend as guests of the Journal, and the mother of freelance reporter Austin Tice is slated to attend as a guest of the Washington Post.
Gershkovich was arrested in Russia a month ago, while Tice was kidnapped in Syria in 2012. Both are U.S. citizens.
The president of the White House Correspondents Association, NPR’s Tamara Keith, said she plans to reference both Gershkovich and Tice in her speech at the dinner, noting that they are “among hundreds of journalists around the world wrongfully detained in countries where there is no such thing as a free press,” Politico reported.
The Journal and MarketWatch are both published by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.
NWS,
Related: U.S. sanctions Russian and Iranian entities on Thursday for detaining Americans
And see: Biden administration condemns Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal reporter
The dinner on Saturday is due to kick off with a video from Arnold Schwarzenegger and feature comedian Roy Wood Jr. as its host.
Wood, a correspondent for Comedy Central’s
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Daily Show, has promised jokes about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has drawn criticism this month for not disclosing major gifts from a wealthy Republican donor. The comedian also has tweeted that he’s having to change the jokes that he had prepared for the event following this week’s dramatic personnel moves in the cable-news industry.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to draw further attention to imprisoned journalists, as he’s slated to take part in the release of the 2023 edition of the World Press Freedom Index, which is produced by Reporters Without Borders.
