WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) – The annual awards dinner and ceremony held by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) in Washington – often called “nerd prom” – has been cancelled for a second straight year amid the coronavirus pandemic, the organisation announced Wednesday (April 14).

But the 117-year-old WHCA made it clear that the show – downscaled and stripped of frippery during the three years President Donald Trump boycotted it – would go on next year.

“We will do all this in person next year, with the WHCA annual dinner on April 30, 2022,” officials said in a statement posted on the organisation’s website.

Last year’s dinner was pushed back from its traditional late spring slot to late summer, and finally called off as the coronavirus spread.

Organisers tried to figure out a way to hold this year’s dinner, but planning to socially distance the journalists, politicians and celebrities who usually attend proved too challenging. (The New York Times does not attend the event.)

“We have worked through any number of scenarios over the last several months, but to put it plainly: While improving rapidly, the Covid-19 landscape is just not at a place where we could make the necessary decisions to go ahead with such a large indoor event,” the organisation’s board wrote.

The group, a non-profit that represents the interests of White House journalists and funds education programmes, will soon announce its annual journalism award winners and scholarship recipients, and it still plans to hold a town hall meeting to discuss logistical concerns in covering the Biden White House.

The organisation was at a crossroads even before the disruptions of the virus.

Over the past decade, and especially during the Obama years, the dinner grew from what amounted to an oversized capital gathering of political tradespeople into something with more swagger, cultural currency and national political punch.

Thanks to the glamour of the Obamas, the dinner became a celebrity-filled event, replete with athletes, movie stars and red carpets.

But no attendee has had as lasting an impact on the institution, both in his presence and absence, as Mr Trump, who boycotted all three dinners held during his presidency and ordered his staff to stay away.

But he also went much further: His administration abandoned the practice of daily briefings, and Mr Trump regularly called members of the news media “the enemy of the people.”

In recent years, while the dinner was still a big event, it was refocused to celebrate freedom of the press.

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