AURN Responds to Trump's Attack on White House Journalists

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, November 12, 2018

American Urban Radio Network is expressing its "extreme disappointment and dismay" following President Trump's comments about its White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief, April Ryan. Trump went after Ryan calling her a "loser" who "doesn't know what the hell she is doing." However, for more than two decades, Ryan has been one of the few African American journalists covering the White House on issues impacting people of color and AURN is the largest radio U.S. network reaching African Americans.

Last week the President revoked access to the White House for CNN's Jim Acosta and threatened to do the same with Ryan after labeling her "a loser" in remarks before departing for Paris. Last Wednesday, PBS's Yamiche Alcindor asked President Trump if his campaign rhetoric was "emboldening white nationalists" and the president said, "That's such a racist question."

"We condemn these personal attacks as a campaign of intimidation putting April Ryan at risk as well as the entire press corps" said AURN CEO Chesley Maddox-Dorsey. "In addition to Ms. Ryan, over a 48-hour span last week the President also attacked two other prominent African American female journalists, Abby Phillip of CNN and Yamiche Alcindor of PBS."

"We will continue to strive even harder to ensure that our audience is able to enjoy the foundations of a democratic civil society. AURN's April Ryan helps Americans engage with and learn from -- almost as if they were there themselves -- the powerful and revered U.S. Presidency and team. She is a reporter committed to the exemplary standards required of all media outlets but further refined by her training, her experience and her work at the White House," added Maddox-Dorsey.

AURN's President of Program Operations and Vietnam Veteran Jerry Lopes said, "We, like all Americans, have a vested interest in the success of the office of the Presidency and the person who occupies it." Let us all move forward together for the good of our country. and as a nation we shall overcome."