White House reporter April Ryan claims in a new book that another black journalist disparaged her by asserting that Ryan was only called on during White House press briefings because she’s black.
In recalling one of her many clashes with former Trump administration official Omarosa Manigault-Newman, Ryan writes in her upcoming book “Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House” that there had been “another altercation earlier that day” in February 2017.
“A conservative Black female reporter had openly, in my presence, spoke the wrong words, saying, ‘The only reason you get called on is because you’re black,'” said Ryan, who reports for American Urban Radio Networks.
Ryan confirmed to the Washington Examiner in a phone interview Monday that the unnamed reporter in the book is Francesca Chambers, a White House reporter for the Daily Mail.
“To this day, those words don’t sit well with me,” Ryan writes. “At that time, I had had enough! ‘Yes!’ I said to her. ‘You ain’t shit!’ In front of everyone, asking her, ‘Who you think you are? You’re Black too, in case you didn’t know it!’”
Ryan said that Chambers must have felt “entitled” and that she “thought she could outperform a seasoned reporter who’d been there perhaps since before she was born.”
Ryan told the Examiner that Chambers made the remark while complaining that she herself was being overlooked by then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer. “That was diminishing me,” Ryan said of the alleged slight.
Chambers, who a source confirmed is currently traveling abroad, did not return a request for comment from the Examiner on Monday but the next day a spokesman for the Daily Mail released a statement disputing Ryan’s version of events.
“It is a sad day for journalism when a reporter makes false claims against another reporter to sell a book,” the statement said. “Ms. Ryan knows what she has written to be false and she is also fully aware of the unacceptable way that she has treated Ms. Chambers in the White House for the past two years.’”
The statement, however, did not dispute that a verbal altercation between Ryan and Chambers did take place.
Ryan said she included the anecdote in her book because it was part of “a big day” that climaxed with a confrontation outside of the Oval Office with Manigault-Newman.
She said she believed her story about her encounter with Chambers made both of them “look bad” but, “I have to be truthful.”
“Under Fire” comes out Sep. 1.
