Celebrities talk to media on the red carpet as they attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday Lahaina Mondonedo/MNS
WASHINGTON – The red carpet is lined with cameras and reporters, secret service agents are on every corner and famous faces flow in one after the other. This was the scene at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday, but not all are celebrities.
CJ Holtzaman is a student at Northwestern University pursuing her master’s from the Medill School of Journalism. Holtzman is a recipient of the White House Correspodents’ Scholarship, one of 18 given at the annual dinner. She said the $5,000 she received helped with school expenses.
“I got a really nice new computer and new camera, ” Holtzman said. “Those types of things that I needed for the Northwestern program that otherwise I might not have gotten.”
Christopher Paicely is also a graduate journalism student at Northwestern. He says the scholarship may have lessened the burden of his student loans, but it will help his future career even more.
“More than just getting the money out of it, the opportunity to meet the president and go to the dinner is going to be a good catalyst career-wise,” Paicely said. “Just being able to say that we were involved in that.”
Julia Whiston is the executive director of the White House Correspondents’ Association. She said the organization likes to help students going into the journalism field.
“It’s very expensive to go to school and we want to help students who are excellent and would make great reporters,” Whiston said. “So that’s our goal.”
The annual dinner raises money for the scholarships. This year, 18 journalism students from five universities were given scholarships totaling more than $130,000. Grant Slater, also a Northwestern student and scholarship recipient, received top honors -$38,0000. Slater was not able to attend the dinner because he is interning with the Associated Press in Jerusalem.
For more information on scholarships and the annual dinner see the White House Correspondents’ Association website. For more red carpet coverage see Washington’s star-studded night.