The media critic for the Washington Post lashed out at CNN and contributor April Ryan for their silence about an incident in which Ryan's bodyguard allegedly assaulted a TV reporter trying to cover one of her speaking engagements.
In a hard-hitting column, Erik Wemple urged: “Speak now or relinquish your standing as First Amendment champions.”
“The strategy here is to ignore the situation in the hopes that it will blow over,” he wrote. “Such an outcome shouldn’t be furnished to CNN and Ryan, given the level of professional hypocrisy at hand.”
The bodyguard, who Ryan has said she hired after getting death threats, has now been charged with assault, theft, and harassment, Mediaite reported.
“It’s one thing to hire a bodyguard to protect a freedom-of-press advocate from death threats,” Wemple wrote. “It’s another thing when the bodyguard undermines freedom of press on behalf of the freedom-of-press advocate.”
He also decried the lack of public comment about the incident from the reporter and CNN.
“Though Ryan is happy to light up CNN’s airwaves with outrage over the Trump administration’s heavy-handed actions vis-a-vis press access, what does she have to say when her own actions are in the mix?” he wrote. “She called and requested to speak off the record. No thanks.”
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