The White House press corps gathered for its annual black-tie dinner, a toned-down affair after Donald Trump snubbed the event, becoming the first incumbent US President to bow out in 36 years.

Without Mr Trump, who scheduled a rally instead to mark his 100th day in office, the usually celebrity-filled soiree hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association took a more sober turn, even as it pulled in top journalists and Washington insiders.

Most of Mr Trump’s administration also skipped the event in solidarity with the President, who has repeatedly accused the press of mistreatment. The President used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.

“I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away,” he told a crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, calling out The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC by name.

Instead of the typical roasts — presidents of both parties have delivered their own zingers for years — the event returned to its traditional roots of recognising reporters’ work and handing out student scholarships as famed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein presented awards.

Former president Barack Obama turned the dinner into an art form, perfecting a great line in self-deprecation and poking fun at the media.

The Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj instead stepped up to the plate, emceeing the event and referring to the absent Mr Trump as “the elephant that’s not in the room”.

“The leader of our country is not here,” Minhaj said. “And that’s because he lives in Moscow. It is a very long flight. It’d be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can’t just make it on a Saturday. It’s a Saturday.

“As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECXKB0-2FA

Minhaj also parodied the President’s sobriety.

“You know that Donald Trump doesn’t drink — does not touch alcohol. Which is oddly respectable. But think about that. That means every statement, every interview, every tweet — completely sober.

“How is that possible? We’ve all had that excuse, haven’t we? Been like, ‘I said what? No, listen, babe, I swear to you I was hammered. That’s not who I really am’ … (but) He tweets at 3am sober. Who is tweeting at 3a, sober? Donald Trump. Because it’s 10am in Russia; those are business hours.”

Meanwhile, at the Not The White House Correspondents’ Dinner event across town earlier that day, comedian Will Ferrell reprised his role as former president George W. Bush.

“How do you like me now?” he said, in opening.

“The prodigal son returns,” he said, before adding that he didn’t know what that phrase meant but was pretty sure it was something positive.

Ferrell’s Bush character slammed the media for unleashing “gotcha questions” on him such as: “Why are you going to war?” and “Why did you not respond to Hurricane Katrina?”

“I just wish someone had told me all I had to do was say ‘fake news’ over and over and over again,” Bush lamented.

“Look, I never liked the press, but I took my lumps, like every other president,” he said. “The new guy has thin skin. He’s what they call a snowflake.” Trump “can’t handle the heat,” he said, “He’s a weak man.”