Finally, I was in the room during a shooting. I thought I prepared for this.
Well,.... that was a lot.
Wow. That was an insane evening.
I was seated towards the back of the room at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. I heard the ruckus in the hallway, the sound of something falling, tables maybe. I saw people start to get on the ground, so I immediately followed suit.
In that moment, I remembered what they taught me at the State Department, find an exit. That’s the training. Mass shootings, bombs, active threats, get out of there. I didn’t know what this was. I could smell something like smoke.
And when I got under the table, I realized the tables were packed so tightly together that I couldn’t move. I hadn’t mapped the room when I arrived. I didn’t know where the nearest exit was.
“Idiot. How could I have forgotten to map the exit?”
So I stayed. Staying under the table felt like my only chance of survival.
I texted my husband.
8:35 p.m.: Something scary is happening.
8:35 p.m.: I’m under a table.
8:35 p.m.: I’m really scared.
8:35 p.m.: Tell the kids I love them if something happens.
8:44 p.m.: I’m okay.
It had felt almost surreal to be going to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in the first place, especially as a local journalist. Honestly, at some point it started to feel like a consolation prize. It had been a rough week. An editor I cared about deeply lost their job. I thought, at least this, a reprieve, something you only see once in a lifetime.
This wasn’t exactly the once-in-a-lifetime experience I had imagined. And I hope it actually is once in a lifetime.
But it gave me something, solidarity. With the Americans who experience this all over the country. The terror. The fear. The shaking you don’t even realize is happening. The shock, then the slow realization, then the wave — wanting to cry, wanting to be held.
I hugged a stranger. We held each other because we were both still alive. She took a picture with me. I don’t know where that photo is. I don’t remember her name.
They tried to keep the dinner going. But people had already started to leave.
This is America, 2026.
Instinct
And then, in the middle of all of it, the only thought I could hold onto was, “I need to fucking report this.”
I watched my colleague, a straight badass/crazy dude, Tyrone, get up immediately and run toward the story. I got up too. And you could tell, in that room, who the journalists were. Because the journalists (once they realized they were still alive) went reflexive. Straight into action. Telling the story that needed to be told. No pause, no permission.
But I still ebbed and flowed. I wanted to cry at one point. I decided to hold it together.
I got angry at one point. I decided to set that down too.
My body was shaking and I didn’t even realize it.
Everyone in that room knew it was going to be a tense night for multiple reasons. People protesting the president’s actions.
There was also a lot of petty things.
Tensions between higher list celebrities and others. At one point, certain people spent too long on the red carpet so they held others outside in the rain for extended periods.
But when the shooting started, all the hierarchy, all the status, all the credentialing and table placement and who’s-who dissipated. None of it mattered. We were all just people trying to survive, trying to get home to the people we loved.
Home
I filed a short story for national.
It’s 1:35 a.m. now. I just got into bed.
My three-year-old woke up and climbed into my bed.
I have never been so happy to be disturbed in my life.
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