Hypocrisy Alert: CNN's April Ryan's Bodyguard Forcibly Removes Journalist from Speech
White House correspondent April Ryan has rarely been shy about making news as well as covering it.
The CNN “political analyst” and American Urban Radio Networks reporter has made her disruptive presence felt on numerous occasions in the press room of the Donald Trump White House.
But when it comes to a local journalist covering a speech by Ryan herself, apparently it’s a different ball game — and the hypocrisy is almost unbelievable.
As Fox News reported Wednesday, a New Jersey journalist was ejected and his recording equipment forcibly removed by a Ryan bodyguard from an event in a New Brunswick hotel on Aug. 3.
Check out video footage from the hotel lobby below.
Come on @AprilDRyan journalists don’t deserve to be treated like this. No one does. You know better. pic.twitter.com/zvmepReubc
— Charlie Kratovil (@Charlie4Change) August 9, 2019
Charlie Kratovil, editor of New Brunswick Today, was in attendance at the New Jersey Parent Summit in New Brunswick when the incident took place and recounted the story in a lengthy Twitter thread.
He explained that he’d gone through proper channels to cover Ryan’s speech.
“I had no intention to write any articles, or to ask Ms. Ryan any questions,” he wrote in a Twitter post. “Unlike many stories I do, I wasn’t digging deep or trying to put anyone on the spot. Just thought it was cool that a well-known journo was speaking in my city & something our audience might appreciate.”
The ”well-known journo” apparently didn’t appreciate the attention. As Ryan was being introduced on stage, Kratovil wrote, a man came up to him and demanded to know who he was with.
Identifying himself only as “with the speaker,” the man then ordered Kratovil to take the camera down, he wrote.
When he refused, Kratovil wrote, “public relations people” surrounded him and began pestering him to take down the video camera. Kratovil and the group left the ballroom to continue the conversation, but the camera remained running — at least for a while.
Check out the video here. The real action begins about the 1-minute mark, when the bodyguard approaches Ryan on the stage, apparently to ask for instructions. (Warning: Some explicit language near the end.)
It’s barely audible, but it’s worth pointing out that just as the video is being disrupted, Ryan can be heard telling the audience, “When I speak, I don’t have news covering my speech.”
In his Twitter thread, Kratovil noted, one other person was recording the speech.
Ryan and her Trump administration-bashing colleagues in the White House press corps love to present themselves as champions of the free press and standing up to the Trump administration for its treatment of the media.
But it’s apparently different when it comes to April Ryan and a journalist for a small local outlet — New Brunswick Today was founded in 2011 as an online local news site that now also includes a print edition that’s distributed for free, according to its website.
Ryan not only does not wish to be covered, her staffers apparently feel no compunction about forcibly removing journalists and their equipment from events where Ryan is speaking.
Kratovil told Fox he plans on pressing charges against Ryan’s bodyguard this week.
He also said that he’s no supporter of the Trump administration.
“I think that the president deserves much criticism for his administration’s lack of transparency, his own irresponsible rhetoric towards the media, and his childish attacks on individual reporters like Ms. Ryan,” Kratovil said.
“Her reputation now depends on finally addressing this situation head-on and proclaiming that what happened that night in New Brunswick cannot be tolerated.”
As bad as the behavior of Ryan and her staff was, the silence surrounding the incident is almost worse.
Comparing how the mainstream media react to situations differently depending on the political stripe of the actors is an old game by now — and almost tiresome.
But does anyone doubt for a second that the media would have gone ballistic if a Sean Hannity or a Tucker Carlson had had a local journalist’s equipment forcibly removed from a speaking event?
Is there any question that if Brit Hume had bodyguards tossing out video equipment from a speaking event, it would not be a major story? (New Brunswick is well within the coverage area of The New York Times, after all.)
But Ryan is a liberal, and one who likes to pose as a scourge of the Trump White House, so the New Brunswick incident gets a pass. The conservative website BizPac Review published a story about the incident on Saturday, but from the mainstream media, it’s been crickets.
So, this First Amendment champion can kick out a journalist covering a public event she happens to be a part of. And the news can be ignored by the same media outlets that would have been baying for blood if a conservative had been involved.
The hypocrisy would be unbelievable if the country didn’t see it every day.
The Western Journal has reached out to CNN for comment on this story, but has not yet received a response. We will update this article if and when we do.
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