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Hosting the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is always stressful, and this year that honor will be bestowed upon Roy Wood Jr.
Wood Jr. is most known for his job as a hilarious correspondent on The Daily Show and currently has his own stand-up special, Imperfect Messenger streaming on Paramount+. So he’s ready for the event, which is sure to produce tons of quotables and draw boos both in person and on social media.
The event goes down April 29, and Tamara Keith, the WHCA president and White House correspondent for NPR, is excited for Wood Jr. to be a part of the evening because his content is sure to be thought-provoking.
“Roy Wood Jr. brings a journalistic eye to his comedy. He’s hilarious — but also makes sure his audiences are thinking as they laugh,” Keith said in a statement. “My aim for this year’s dinner is to lift up the importance of a free and independent press to a functioning democracy, so I am thrilled to be able to feature a comedian who gets what journalism is all about.”
Wood Jr. isn’t completely new to the world of journalism as he was a broadcast journalism major at Florida A&M University before pursuing comedy and even hosted a morning news show in his native Birmingham, Alabama. His father, Roy Wood Sr., was a radio broadcaster and journalist who extensively covered the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. Wood Sr. was also honored with a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
The comedian joked about landing the job. He knows some will love his presence while others may cringe depending on their political leanings.
“It’s an honor to be a part of a long-running tradition of celebrating those members of the media, who work so hard to uncover the truth, and hold our government accountable,” the 44-year-old, said in the press release.
“It will be a great night that will go down in the history books, or not, depending on which state you live in.”
