One Black Reporter, One Gay Reporter Not Invited to WH Christmas Party, Both Cry Hatred
So, that’s exactly two people. Hardly a national issue.
12.1.2017
19
A gay reporter and a black reporter are not invited to the White House Christmas party. It sounds like the start of a joke, and it is a joke, but just not a funny one.
This year marks the first in 20 that White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks April Ryan didn’t receive an invitation. She believes it has to do with the feud between her and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
“I don’t think I was overlooked. I think they don’t like me. For whatever reason, they have disdain for me.”
Ryan has cried racism before when it comes to the “opposition” she feels from the White House, though she (amazingly) didn’t claim that was the reason for the dis-invite. But give her time.
Another reporter, Chris Johnson of the nation’s oldest LGBT paper, The Washington Blade, also never received an invitation even though he went seven times under President Obama. He assumed this year there was some type of “oversight,” but realized he was off the guest list and never found out why. He has a theory, though:
“It is consistent with the White House press secretary not calling on me during the on-camera press briefings… just kind of consistent with the policy of the administration to exclude LGBTQ people.”
Johnson has also complained that in press conferences, he has only been called on twice in six months by Sanders.
Britain’s The Independent really tried to make a big deal out of this story even though this annual party is nothing more than “a casual, off-the-record gathering for members of the administration and the press.” The paper found exactly two people — one gay, one black — who were not invited to somehow show that bigotry is alive and well in the Trump White House. Nice try!
Good thing for Ryan and Johnson, though, is that CNN is boycotting the event altogether. Surely there’s a table for two at the fake news party.
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