President of the United States Barack Obama has been often described as the least press-friendly of modern times by journalists, with a record of stonewalling and snubbing the journalists. But on Saturday night, some most prominent members of new media will have a party with the president.

The annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has always offered optics that would surprise a journalistic puritan. According to reports, the event will be eagerly attended by the journalists this year. The tables in the Washington Hilton ballroom, more than 2,500 seats in all, have been sold to media companies. The cost of every table is about $3,000. The White House Correspondents’ Association stated that it has refused more than 1,000 requests for tickets this year.

As per the reports, The Washington Post will occupy seven of them, while the New York Times has told its reporters not to attend the dinner. It has banned its reporters from attending the event since 2007.

Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, said in an interview this week that the ban was imposed when he was Washington bureau chief. It was because he thought the dinner could make the press and politicians too cozy. Media elder statesman Tom Brokaw has similar views about the event.

Brokaw said, “If there’s ever an event that separates the press from the people that they’re supposed to serve, symbolically, it is that one. Meet the Press. It is time to rethink it”. But a number of journalists have decided to join the Saturday’s event.

Some journalists think that Obama administration has often been uncooperative. In a TV interview in 2014, Jill Abramson, then editor of the Times, said that the administration is the most secretive she had encountered during her long career.