Last week, members of the press and others got an invitation to a Washington cocktails and hors d’oeuvres reception from the Motion Picture Association of America, of which Mr. Dodd is now chairman, to honor what it called “our member company White House correspondents.”

Chris Pizzello/Associated Press Christopher Dodd is now head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Strictly speaking, the six studios in the movie trade association — Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney Studios — don’t have much in the way of White House correspondents.

But some of their corporate cousins, like the Fox, NBC and ABC networks, have political correspondents galore — and Mr. Dodd has decided to entertain some of them with the help of the chef Mike Isabella and the comedian Seth Meyers at a reception scheduled for Friday.

“It seemed like a good way to bring people by,” Mr. Dodd said, when queried about the event last week.

The wording of the invitation, said Mr. Dodd, wasn’t intended to signal that the movie association planned to extend its reach beyond movies. But another Washington press mixer, with a little Hollywood cachet, could do no harm, he figured.

“I thought we might start a little tradition,” Mr. Dodd said.

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