White House reporter April Ryan to speak at Johns Hopkins University

Veteran journalist April Ryan, a tenacious reporter and a fixture on the White House beat, will speak at Johns Hopkins University on Sept. 12 in the first JHU Forums on Race in America event of the 2017-18 academic year.

Image caption: April Ryan

Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks since January 1997, will give her perspective on reporting on the U.S. presidency during a moderated conversation at 7 p.m. in Mudd Hall, room 26. The event, titled "Race, Politics, and the Changing Face of Journalism," will be preceded by a 6 p.m. reception.

"For the Forums on Race, April Ryan will describe what it is like to report from her seat in the White House briefing room and the winding corridors of our country's urban and rural communities," says Tracey Reeves, JHU's director of media relations, who will moderate the conversation. "April will talk about the fast-paced culture of news gathering at a time when the rapidly changing profession seems under siege by a wary public struggling to decipher what is real and what is 'fake' news."

Ryan, a Baltimore native and Morgan State University graduate, is the author of the best-selling book The Presidency in Black and White: My Up-Close View of Three Presidents, which won an NAACP Image Award. She is one of only three African-Americans to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents Association in that organization's 100-year history. In April, Ryan signed on as a political analyst with CNN, and in May she was named 2017's "Journalist of the Year" by the National Association of Black Journalists.

As host of the daily feature "The White House Report"—which is broadcast to AURN's nearly 300 radio affiliates—and through her blog "Fabric of America," she delivers news with urban and minority perspectives.

"As the JHU Forums on Race in America fulfill their mission to inform and expand our community conversations, April Ryan is an exciting choice to begin the new academic year," says Sunil Kumar, Johns Hopkins University provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. "She will bring a first-hand perspective on topics that are at the forefront for our society right now: race, politics, and the news media."

This event is open to the public, and tickets are not required. A live-stream broadcast will also be available.

The JHU Forums on Race in America series launched in the spring of 2015 to inform and expand the discussions that were ongoing in the university's classrooms, workplaces, and public spaces: discussions about racial equality, divisions in our society, and the toll of institutionalized racism. Past speakers include writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Charles Blow, and activists Angela Davis and Bree Newsome.

The series is sponsored by the Center for Africana Studies, the Diversity Leadership Council, JHU's Black Student Union, the Black Faculty and Staff Association, Latino Alliance, the Office of Institutional Equity, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Homewood Student Affairs, the Office of the President, and the Office of the Provost.