For 17 years, HuffPost has attended the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, the televised annual gathering of political journalists in Washington, D.C. This year, we cannot stomach it. We’re skipping.

The dinner has always had its critics. When the sitting U.S. president attended — the norm until Trump took office in 2017 — journalists were celebrating at a black-tie gala with the very people they were supposed to hold accountable.

This uneasy arrangement infamously veered into appalling spectacle in 2004, when President George W. Bush joked about his failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as some in attendance laughed. The mainstream media had disastrously failed to scrutinize the case for a needless war that, by one estimate, resulted in the deaths of more than 650,000 people. And there they were, laughing about it in tuxedos.

Still, HuffPost attended the event for a simple reason: At its core, the dinner aims to honor journalism and the value of a free press.

But this year, we must draw a line. President Donald Trump will attend the dinner and address the room.

At HuffPost, we have no problem being in the same room with Trump and asking him direct questions. Our White House correspondent, S.V. Dáte, does this all the time — and is scorned and insulted by the White House for his troubles.

The problem is welcoming Trump at an event dedicated to press freedom. Trump’s entire presidency is, of course, an affront to a free press.

He has unleashed the FCC on his critics, punished publications for exercising their First Amendment rights, threatened to jail journalists and used the law as a tool of intimidation.

The idea of raising a glass to the power of journalism with him is at once ridiculous and embarrassing. Count us out.

If you believe journalism should hold power to account — not celebrate it — support that work by joining HuffPost’s membership program. Your contribution helps fund independent reporting that asks the hard questions, no matter who’s in the room.

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