Inside the Hall: from party to chaos and confusion

What had begun as a routine evening of tuxedos, evening gowns and small talk at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner turned into confusion and fear on Saturday night.

A few moments after shots were heard right outside the Washington Hilton ballroom, agents from the United States Secret Service burst into the room and the president Donald Trump do local.

The incident unfolded in seconds. A few dozen guests threw themselves on the floor, not knowing what had happened; others, still oblivious to the shooting, looked around while taking photos with their cell phones.

Those present described hearing sounds that, at first, confused with a falling board — a comparison that Trump himself made to journalists upon returning to the White House.

In moments, the environment has gone beyond normality from a gala event to a movie set, with armed agents positioned next to the table of honor and secretaries of State escorted one by one out of the room.

The guests, in formal attire, they crouched on the floor while the huge hall plunged into absolute silence.

Despite the alarm, nothing indicated the presence of a shooter active inside the enclosure. The disturbance seemed to have happened outside from the hall doors.

However, for many of the journalists present In what is one of the largest gatherings of Washington’s press corps in one room, the lack of clear information proved to be almost as disturbing as the initial shocksays the editor-in-chief of , John Harris.

As physical characteristics of the hall of the Hilton, situated in the depths of the enormous hotel, made the cell phone signal extremely weak. For about half an hour, the room was in confinement.

Hundreds of journalists, unable to send news or even to reassure worried family members, they circulated among themselves exchanging fragments of unconfirmed information.

There was a widespread rumor that a suspected attacker would have been shot down through security a few meters from the central doors of the hall. The version later turned out to be false.

The environment in the room went from festive to anxious and uncertainalthough most of those present did not report having a feeling of imminent danger. The prevailing feeling, as a journalist cited by Harris summarized, was closer to confused disorientation of someone who is woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night.

As the situation stabilized, Weijia JiangCBS News journalist and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, who was sitting next to Trump when the shooting occurred, took the podium to announce that the evening program would resume soon.

Weijia Jiang, a CBS News journalist and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, was sitting next to Trump when the shooting occurred

The prospect of returning to awards shows and humorous speeches, when the nature of the security threat still to be clarified, it seemed to many of those present completely misfit.

Jiang ended up backing down, announcing the cancellation of the evening’s dinner, adding that Trump had committed to reschedule the event within 30 daysand highlighted the the president’s desire to be present.

This is a significant detail, considering that unlike the former president Barack Obamaknown to those present at the ceremony every year, Donald Trump did not insist on being present. This was, in fact, his first participation in the dinner over two terms.

The incident also reignited questions about feasibility and safety of this long-standing tradition. The Washington Hilton, with its vast and complex layout, has a dark history:

It was at the exit of this same hall, as Trump highlighted in the press conference after the incident, that the president by John Hinckley Jr. in March 1981.

Long criticized as a anachronism that mixes journalism, celebrities and frivolity in an increasingly volatile political era, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner perhaps never seemed so surrealnot as fragile as this Saturday night, concludes Harris.