Latest news with #BlackPressUSA
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
April Ryan Addresses ‘Awful' Racial Blunder at White House Correspondents' Dinner
April Ryan has been to dozens of White House Correspondents' Dinners, but this year's event stood out—for the wrong reasons. 'It was the oddest thing I've ever been to,' said Ryan, the longest-serving Black White House correspondent in history, on this week's episode of The Daily Beast Podcast. During the dinner, Ryan—who currently serves as the Washington Bureau Chief or BlackPressUSA—was awarded the Dunnigan-Payne Prize to honor her storied career. But the WHCA made an excruciating blunder while presenting the award. As the association's president Eugene Daniels took the stage to honor Ryan, the screen behind him mistakenly cut to NBC News' Yamiche Alcindor. The association had mixed up two of the political media's best-known Black women. 'Oh, that was a bad moment,' Ryan recounted. 'It was awful,' she told co-hosts Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee. 'We have gone beyond that kind of time when Black people all look the same.' Ryan said that while the incident was embarrassing for Alcindor as well, the two were able to laugh about it afterward. 'That's my girl,' Ryan said. 'I called her, 'She said, 'Hey April,' I said, 'No, no, no, I'm Yamiche, you're April,' and we got a laugh out of it.' The atmosphere at the dinner was notably more subdued than in previous years. President Donald Trump again opted to skip the event; the association last month canceled its scheduled comedian, Amber Ruffin, following comments she made on The Daily Beast Podcast. Coles—who also attended the dinner—noted, 'It's been a bad week for Black women with the White House Correspondents.' Ryan, who served on the association's board for three years in the early 2010s, agreed. 'You never censor someone's craft and their art. You never do that.' She also reminisced over that tenure in the interview, explaining to Coles and Bee that it's not always glitz, glamour, and endless opportunities to interview the president. 'I was in charge of the refrigerator in the kitchen that kept breaking. And we had to bring the people in when the president was gone,' Ryan said. 'It was such an arduous task. I mean, people would complain about the toilets not working or (that) there's no toilet paper in there.' During President Trump's second term, however, it's not just journalists' appliances that are breaking down. Even outside of the WHCA, Ryan admitted that media morale has plummeted. The president has escalated his attacks on the 'fake news' by demonizing longstanding journalists and barring reporters from the White House press pool. 'And once you lose ground, you never get it back,' she added. 'If the president gets his way, we won't be around.' But Ryan isn't give up hope just yet. She stressed that the Fourth Estate must continue as 'the next line of questioning when all else fails,' including the government itself. That being said, it won't be easy. 'We're all unpacking the first one hundred days of this administration,' said Bee. 'I know it's too soon to talk about when it will be over, but how are we actually going to put the horses back in the barn?' 'How are we gonna get the horses back in the barn?' asked Ryan. 'Well, let's say this—the barn has burned down. There's no barn to go back to." New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast are released every Thursday. Like and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. And click here for email updates as each new episode drops.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legendary White House Reporter: I Know the Secrets of Trump's Physique
Long-time White House reporter April Ryan has some theories about President Donald Trump's latest slimline look. On this week's episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, co-hosts Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee asked Ryan, the longest-serving Black White House correspondent in history for her take on Trump's much-discussed weight loss. 'Can I tell you something? I don't know if he's lost weight or maybe he's using a Spanx,' Ryan said, joking that Trump could even be putting multiple layers of the iconic shapewear. 'Oh, I don't know—that's painful.' 'A manx, I think they're called manx,' Coles noted, quipping that 'they're very cheap on Shein… get them before the tariffs.' 'I really want to know if he's on Ozempic though,' she continued. 'Because we definitely spot it. I think he's been losing weight.' The president's slimmer physique earlier sparked speculations—and fawning praise from conservative reporters—that he could be on a weight loss drug. In his most recent physical exam, however, presidential physician Sean Barbabella attributed the 78-year-old's 'excellent health' to his 'active lifestyle,' especially his love for golf. Ryan, the Washington bureau chief and senior White House correspondent for Black Press USA, also called on her fellow reporters to 'go back to the basics' in covering Trump as the White House drastically, well, reshapes the White House media briefing room. 'We are still useful, but in reality they're taking it over,' Ryan said of the Trump administration's big changes to the press pool—and press freedoms more broadly. 'I'm not into chastising other journalists, but we have to go back to the basics and not be friends of the president… and ask the questions,' she added. (Even if those questions are about girdles.) For more from Ryan, who also discussed an awkward mix-up at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner and broader morale in the White House Press Briefing room, as well as an interview with California gubernatorial candidate Stephen Cloobeck, listen to this week's episode of The Daily Beast podcast in full. New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast are released every Thursday. Like and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. And click here for email updates as each new episode drops.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump orders ‘ideology' removed from Smithsonian. What about NC sit-ins exhibit?
President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month putting Vice President JD Vance and an attorney in charge of finding and 'removing improper ideology' from monuments, museums and the National Zoo overseen by the Department of Interior. On Thursday, the news outlet BlackPressUSA published a report that an exhibit from a historic moment in the Civil Rights Movement, Greensboro's F.W. Woolworth Company lunch counter, fell victim to Trump's order. BlackPressUSA stated that 'Trump officials are sending back exhibit items to their rightful owners and dismantling them — starting with the 1960 Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in exhibit.' The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington has a section of the original lunch counter on display. The other section is housed in Greensboro at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington is home to two of the lunch counter's stools. Linda St. Thomas, chief spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution, told McClatchy in an email Friday that the lunch counter is not at risk. 'The Greensboro, NC, lunch counter is not leaving the Smithsonian,' St. Thomas wrote. 'It is on display at the National Museum of American History where it has been for many years.' The BlackPressUSA article specifically mentioned that the exhibit was leaving the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 'The National Museum of African American History and Culture also has two stools from the original counter; one is on exhibit at all times, the other rotates in so that they can be properly preserved,' St. Thomas wrote. 'Bottom line is that no artifacts have left either museum.' Cynetra McMillian, public affairs specialist for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, told McClatchy Friday, 'Since the opening, one stool has always been and continues to be on display.' Late Friday, the news outlet updated its website and social media to say that the Smithsonian says the lunch counter exhibit will now remain at the museum. The lunch counter took its place in American history in 1960. It was then that four Black students from N.C. A&T State University took seats at the counter in downtown Greensboro, despite the restaurant being segregated. When they were refused service, they wouldn't get up. And they would come back daily until Woolworth changed its segregation policies. Their decision helped launch the Civil Rights Movement across the South that led to the end of legal segregation. Other museums across the country have portions of lunch counters from other sit-ins that were spurred by the Greensboro Four's actions. BlackPressUSA's article also reported that the museum was returning a Bible and one of the country's first books on racism to the Rev. Amos Brown, a civil rights leader and pastor of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. 'The Bible and book belong to Rev. Brown of San Francisco who generously loaned them to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture for an exhibition,' St. James told McClatchy. 'The loan agreement has expired and the items are being returned to the owner which is standard museum practice. The curator called and wrote to Rev. Brown.'
