WASHINGTON — Mentalist Oz Perlman was to dazzle an audience of several hundred with mind tricks in a bright hotel ballroom here Saturday night. Instead, he found himself performing the act for a small group of media executives in a dark underground event space near midnight.
MS NOW had planned to hold a celebratory soiree at the site of an old underground trolley station in the heart of the nation’s capital as part of its annual post-White House Correspondents Dinner tradition. This year was supposed to be even more auspicious–until fear struck just a few hours ago. Authorities are still investigating an incident in which a man approached a Washington Hilton space where President Donald Trump was scheduled to attend a journalism extravaganza on the city’s social calendar dedicated to the federal government and made sharp remarks to journalists, news executives, media directors and government officials.
President Trump and those in attendance were not injured, but many were shaken by the explosive gunfire and a reminder that political violence appears more likely to erupt in the United States than at any time in recent memory.
With that in mind, media organizations that support traditional afterparties immediately worked to repurpose them.
“While tonight’s event is not what we originally intended, we believe it is important to provide a space for friends and colleagues to come together,” MS NOW said in an email to guests at the party, which was intended to be an elaborate debut of sorts. The news organization is no longer part of NBC News and is now the flagship news organization of Versant Media, which was separated from NBCUniversal earlier this year.
Meanwhile, NBC News has chosen to continue the after-event, which has been held for many years, determining that attendees could use a location to gather, meet and process.
After the gunshots, I couldn’t do my usual stupid things. NBC news anchor Tom Lamas interrupted regular NBC programming with a special report, and many of the news organization’s executives quietly left a major gathering at the French ambassador’s residence to watch their teams’ efforts in a makeshift monitor room, according to people familiar with the matter.
The tone on both sides was calm. Each felt is designed to accommodate a larger crowd that may not feel comfortable enough to attend. And it became a pain to go back and forth between the two events. Washington police closed off a portion of the city’s main thoroughfare, Connecticut Avenue, making the direct route between events impassable.
Still, people needed to talk about what they saw and heard, why it happened, and how things could have been worse.
At the MS NOW gathering, Perlman performed the feat for Versant Media CEO Mark Lazarus and CNBC President KC Sullivan, among others. Still, while some of the uproar has died down, a series of projections on the wall explaining its connection to the First Amendment were highlighted by the night’s events.
Meanwhile, NBC News hosted journalists and staff, including anchors and correspondents such as Lester Holt, Christine Romans and Joanna Stern. Executives such as Cesar Conde, chairman of the company’s news division, and Rebecca Blumenstein, editorial director of NBC News, were also instrumental in organizing the night.
Word of this alarming development spread on the streets of Washington through discussions with ride-share drivers and comments from tuxedo-clad attendees who blurted out conversations on their smartphones as they left the original dinner venue.
President Trump said Saturday night that he hopes to resume the dinner party within 30 days. During various conversations, partygoers seemed unsure if they could reconfigure the dinner in such a short period of time.
After all, even a mentalist like Perlman can’t make people forget what happened.
