Media execs, political journalists compete for eyes at WHCD

While presidential candidates will be in short supply at Saturday night’s annual White House Correspondents’ dinner, plenty of media types and corporate hangers-on will be on the scene jockeying for attention.

What started out as a clubby get-together for reporters has morphed into a Super Bowl for the media — a competition to share a table with big-name guests, grab some free publicity and even score a high-profile gig.

This year’s glitzy event has a huge Hollywood contingent, including the cast of the Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight,” along with uber-producer Shonda Rhimes and the stars of her hit TV show, “Scandal.”

They will share the red carpet with a swarm of talent agents, including Ari Emanuel — co-chief of William Morris Endeavor and the inspiration for “Entourage” — who’s attending along with CNBC talking head Joe Kernen.

Meanwhile, rival talent agency UTA, which reps “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, is hosting a party on Friday ahead of the dinner.

Indeed, the Washington affair is such a big deal that a slew of news and media outlets hold their own swank parties around the event.

MSNBC’s after-party attracts gumshoe reporters, while the Bloomberg/Vanity Fair fete is heavy on A-listers. HBO and Google’s shindig will feature actor Bryan Cranston from “Breaking Bad,” who played President Lyndon B. Johnson in the network’s “All the Way.”

The actual dinner at the Hilton Hotel draws around 2,620 attendees who pack tables that cost $3,000 a pop. The money goes to charitable causes funded by the White House Correspondents’ Association, whose members include the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and CBS News, among others.

“This is the first year that every [news] outlet got a table. There was a conscious effort to cater to our membership,” said Olivier Knox, the association’s treasurer and chief White House correspondent at Yahoo News.

The dinner has almost become an employment act for those seeking a late-night network-TV gig.

Roaster-in-Chief Larry Wilmore, host of Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show,” joins a conga line of comedians and TV hosts to headline the event. Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers have also tried to wow the crowd in recent years.

Wilmore will share the spotlight with President Obama, who, in keeping with tradition, will skewer his opponents as part of his stand-up routine.

While Donald Trump turned down an invite, there’s no doubt his run for the White House — or jabs at it — will take center stage. Democrat presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is the sole candidate expected to attend.