White House Correspondent says she had to pray ‘long and hard’
at prospects of Trump becoming President
Veteran journalist and White House correspondent April Ryan knew Donald Trump was going to win the presidential election.
“That night (Nov. 8), history was made, whether or you like it or not, the experiment began,” Ryan said. “Someone who has no idea of governance who wanted to take a business approach to social issues became President of the United States.”
Ryan was the featured guest speaker at a May 24 event held at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall in Oakland. Hundreds filled the auditorium to hear Ryan’s take on politics, mixing life as a mother with being a journalist, and more politics. The event was presented by Publicsource.
“November 8, I knew that morning that Hillary Clinton wasn’t going to win. As a journalist I feel things,” she told the crowd. “In October, there was a Congressional Black Caucus Phoenix Awards dinner, President Barack Obama gave his last speech, the crowd was all happy and elated and sad at the same time because he was leaving. He was a charismatic man, good speaker, and they felt they connected with him. But when Hilary Clinton reached the stage, I didn’t feel it. I said, ‘Something’s wrong.’”
Ryan said after the dinner, several members of the Caucus approached her, “And these are people who have been in politics for so long, and they know the game…I could not believe how distraught they were because they didn’t feel it as well. That was her (Clinton’s) base, and when her base did not feel it, how was the nation going to feel it?”
Ryan has been covering the White House for American Urban Radio Networks since 1997. She has been the lone African American female journalist covering the White House on a regular basis for years. She added duties as a political analyst for CNN earlier this year. Ryan’s career included stints as a music radio on-air talent before turning to news reporting.
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.”
Like us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Pittsburgh-Courier/143866755628836?ref=hl
Follow @NewPghCourier on Twitter https://twitter.com/NewPghCourier
