Fall 2025 Barbara Boxer Fellow
April Ryan is the longest-serving Black member of the White House Press Corps. She has been the only Black female reporter covering urban issues from the White House – a position she has held since the Clinton era.
April is the Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for TheGrio and formerly the American Urban Radio Networks. She has served on the Board of the prestigious White House Correspondents Association – one of the only African Americans board members in the Association’s over 100-year history. She is also an esteemed member of the National Press Club and the Gridiron Club. She has been featured in Essence, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Elle magazines to name a few. In 2017 April was named the Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists. She was a CNN political analyst from 2017 to 2023.
Her 2015 award-winning book, The Presidency in Black and White, provides a behind-the-scenes look at race relations from a White House lens, her beat since 1997. Her 2016 book, At Mama’s Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White examines race relations through the lessons and wisdom that mothers have given their children. She was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for outstanding literary work by a debut author.
April is also the author of Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House. Her 2022 book, Black Women Will Save the World, celebrates Black women’s unprecedented role in upholding democracy.
In 2019 April Ryan became an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, and was recognized as the 2019 Freedom of the Press Award Winner by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. April was nominated in 2021 for the NAACP Image Award for Social Justice Impact. April is a Baltimore native and Morgan State University graduate, and she gives back to this community by serving as a mentor to aspiring journalists and assisting up and coming broadcasters. April considers her greatest life’s work raising her two daughters, Ryan and Grace.
Study Group: “Fact-Based Reporting and the Rise of Independent Journalism”
In this 10-week study group, students examined the evolving intersection between independent journalism and traditional fact-based news gathering. As trust in legacy media erodes and digital platforms shape news delivery, this course offered a timely look at how journalists are adapting to meet the moment. Through conversations with established reporters, media entrepreneurs, news influencers, and rising voices in independent journalism, students worked on the business and branding for their personal careers in journalism while examining how news is gathered, verified, and shared in the modern political era.
Fall 2025 Semester Recap
April Ryan said this about her experience at USC’s Center for the Political Future: “I found the love of more information, the yearn for more, just so enlightening and so heartfelt. I’m so glad that I’ve given students more perspective to be able to use critical thinking as we watch a new delivery system of independent media emerge.”
USC students in April’s study group shared this about their experience:
“Through April Ryan’s study group, I was able to engage with groundbreaking pioneers of the independent media industry while dissecting breaking news each week. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in this fellowship as a student journalist!”
Maria Laguna, Journalism
“From this course, I learned more about how the media is involved with creating ideas and shifting political perspectives. We were able to meet each week with major people in the field of independent political media, such as Don Lemon, who each commented on the importance of independent media in an era of political polarization and monetization. My favorite part of this study group was how we started off by sharing one piece of news each week and compared how it was portrayed in mainstream media versus independent media.”
April shared her thoughts on the importance of politics, her first political experience, her advice for having respectful political discourse, and what she appreciates about CPF in her “Quick Takes: Q&A with CPF Fellow April Ryan” video.