Biden hails importance of free press at White House correspondents’ dinner

President Joe Biden speaks during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Washington Hilton (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner – known for its fun albeit ferocious jabs at Washington – took a more solemn tone this year as US President Joe Biden acknowledged the several American journalists under siege in authoritarian countries around the world.

In his speech at the event on Saturday night, Mr Biden said: “We are here to send a message to the country and, quite frankly, to the world: The free press is a pillar, maybe the pillar, of a free society, not the enemy.”