By Brian Lowry

Last year Colin Jost and President Joe Biden provided the entertainment at the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner, with the former bringing along his wife, Scarlett Johansson, and jokingly telling the crowd she had agreed to “individually meet everyone in this room.”

The WHCA proceeded again Saturday night, just without the sitting president, a comedian or any kind of entertainment. But the event still delivered a message about the importance of journalism’s mission — amid an assault on the press by the Trump administration — as well as some soul-searching about its failings.