CNN’s top White House correspondent has never heard of stagflation

April Ryan, CNN White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, has 20 years of experience as a journalist with top clearance, but clearly not much insight into matters of economic importance.

Ryan mocked the Trump White House for making up a “new word” during Monday’s press briefing, writing, “The Trump administration has 133 nominees waiting for a vote and we learned a new word in the briefing, ‘stagflation’!”

Of course, as anyone who has taken an introductory economics course knows, stagflation refers to a period of high unemployment and high inflation. Stagflation is rare in the economy, but not as a concept in the English language.

Twitter users were stunned that Ryan had never heard of the word “stagflation”. She later claimed she was pointing out a spelling mistake by White House spokesman Marc Short, further highlighting her own ignorance.

“Marc Short made a mistake and said stagflation instead of stagnation,” she said. “Of course I have heard of that word over the decades!!”

Ryan was named 2017 journalist of the year by the National Association of Black Journalists. “April Ryan is a true trailblazer and truth seeker,” NABJ President Sarah Glover said in release announcing the award. “In the White House press corps circle, where too few black women have been given an opportunity to report, April has excelled and persevered in spite of the many obstacles she has confronted. Her work has risen to the top.”

She has served on the board of the prestigious White House Correspondent’s Association, one of only three African Americans in the association’s more than 100-year history to serve on its board. She is also a member of the National Press Club.

While attempting to shame the creator of a meme they didn’t like, CNN also inadvertently opened the flood gates of meme warfare and now find themselves the target of criticisms.

Conservative author Ann Coulter pointed out that while CNN regularly rages against “white males” and diversity, they themselves employ almost exclusively only Jews.

CNN’s often deceptive articles underscore how the network misleads viewers with propaganda designed to create “spectator democracy”.

This weekend, in covering the G20 in Hamburg, Germany, CNN claimed “peaceful activists” demonstrated at the summit and downplayed the violent riots reported by every other news agency.

“An eclectic and international mix of demonstrators peacefully tramped through the streets of Hamburg on Saturday, a show of anti-capitalist muscle in earshot of the world’s top leaders who were finishing up at the G20 summit,” the fake news outlet reported. They described the mood as friendly: “A festive and communal feel pervaded the crowds, with people holding climate change signs and feminism posters and grooving to music. Many came with family.”

The network never mentioned the civil unrest that dominated the protests until the 12th paragraph of the article, despite Hamburg looking like a war zone. It only mentioned that street violence had “flared” when in fact it had been a permanent feature of the summit.

German police described the rioters as “extremely violent”.