As a journalist, Ryan never wants to become the news. However, she made national headlines in February when President Trump responded to one of Ryan’s questions at a press conference in a contentious manner with, “You want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?” referring to the Congressional Black Caucus.
The following month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer inferred that Ryan had a hidden “agenda” behind some of her questions concerning the President and his ties to Russia.
Ryan asked the crowd at the Carnegie Lecture Hall, “How many of you are OK? How many of you are trying to make it through?”
She then dropped the punch line. “How many of you are still in the fetal position since November 8?”
Ryan said that “people wanted something new. They got it. But they didn’t know what that new would look like. But they got it.”
After Ryan’s address, she took questions from the audience, moderated by Publicsource executive director Mila Sanina. An audience member asked Ryan if she’d want to have dinner with President Trump, and she answered in the affirmative. Ryan said she’d ask the President about a variety of racial issues, including the cutting of funding to some HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities).
“I admire her for her old-school journalistic sensibilities,” said Demeshia Seals, of Downtown Pittsburgh. “She just reports the news, she doesn’t believe in making the news, and I believe that’s a dying art.”
When Ryan and Spicer had their verbal confrontation, “She didn’t fall back, she stood her ground, and I think there’s a tendency for us (as Black women) to want to get along, and we feel that the way to do that is to be more demure, and that’s not how she conducts herself.”
“She’s probably the largest significant person in branding our radio network than anything we’ve ever done,” said Jerry Lopes, president of AURN. “April’s been consistent. April has been doing April going back to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, President Barack Obama…It’s nice to see people beginning to recognize her. She’s been in there asking the tough questions, representing Black America all these years, and I couldn’t be happier for her.”
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