Category: News

Dear colleagues,
Good morning!

It is Monday, July 1st, and I have exciting news to share with you.

First, starting today, Ethnic and Community Media outlets (“ECM”) have full access to “Room 9” at City Hall!

On December 19, 2023, Mayor Eric Adams held his weekly media briefing.  During that session I asked him to provide access to City Hall’s Press Room 9 to ALL ECM.  The Mayor said that he would do so and he expressed his support of our work.  On June 11, 2024, the Mayor kept his promise to “diversify” Room 9 and ensure access to all ECM, and he confirmed that the change would take place in the immediate future.

You can click here for a video recording of my December question and click here for Mayor Adams’ joyous June update.

I want to personally thank Mayor Adams, his Chief Advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, and the Deputy Mayor of Communications, Fabien Levy, for their understanding of our struggle and their tremendous support.

For a more detailed factual narrative regarding the evolution of this major change between December 19, 2023, and June 28, 2024, please click here.
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Second, here is an update regarding our campaign for equitable advertising practices by New York State government agencies.
In response to last year’s shocking report from the CUNY Center for Community Media – concluding that ECM have received less than 10% of New York State’s government advertising dollars over a 10-year period — we launched an advocacy campaign to codify into law the practice that ECM should receive at least 50% of all state government advertising.  (To learn more about CUNY’s explosive report, click here.)

We started by successfully introducing a Bill that duplicates the structure and practices of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media.
On the same day I asked Mayor Adams for ECM access to Room 9, I also asked him if he would support our State legislation, built upon the New York City model.  Mayor Adams publicly responded with total support for the bill.
You can click here for a video recording of Mayor Adams expressing full support.
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What we can do to generate more advertising revenue for ECM.

We are not “just” newspaper publishers or news website publishers.  We are voters and business owners residing and operating in different areas of the State and City.  Many of us wear different hats, including those of community leaders.  So, we need to contact and speak with our State legislators (Assemblymembers and Senators) right now.  Remind them and their staff members of the different roles you play in your community, and that they are up for re-election in 2025.

The legislative session in Albany is over and the State agencies are moving forward with their spending in accordance with their budgets.  If we don’t demand that our elected representatives assist us with our legislation and with accessing these agencies now, then we will miss many opportunities.  Government spending does not take a vacation during the summer months.

The legislators are not in Albany now; they are home in their districts – where we are.  Contact your Assembly member and tell them to sign on to our legislation, Bill #AO9380.  For the contact information for your State Assemblymember, click here.
Then contact your State Senator and ask them to sign on to our legislation, Bill #S8132.  For the contact information for your State Senator, click here.
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Third, join the Coalition and become active.
To visit our website and learn more about our efforts, in general, and/or to join the coalition to get more advertising, click here.
If you have any questions or suggestions on how we can support each other and advocate for more advertising, please feel free to call me at (646) 872-7149 or email me at mona@ethnicandcommunitymedia.org
Have a great summer.

Mona Davids
Founder and Publisher
New York Voice News Newspapers
LittleAfrica News Newspaper

***I know not all members are listed in the directory, we will update with all new members this week. Thanks.
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Below is the June 28, 2024 email sent by Fabien Levy with the new Room 9 seat assignment layout.

(New York, New York) – September 18, 2023 – A ground-breaking report on the advertising practices of New York state agencies and departments released by the Center for Community Media (CCM) at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism uncovers conspicuous inequities in the advertising spending practices of at least six state agencies.

Commissioned for CCM’s Advertising Boost Initiative, the report titled ‘Community Blindspot: Study of NYS agency advertising practices reveals lack of transparency that leaves community media business sector and audience overlooked’ is the result of a year-long research project led by Professor Barbara Gray, Newmark J-School Associate Professor and Chief Librarian, with data analysis and visualization by Jennifer Cheng, CCM’s Research and Development Associate. It provides insights into the advertising spend of New York State agencies across the multitude of outlets that make up the state’s media ecosystem. Furthermore, the report provides recommendations for state agencies to reform their advertising practices in a way that is more transparent, equitable and reflective of the state’s rich diversity.

“In a state as diverse as ours, it is only right that state agencies distribute advertising funds to ensure fairness and support the economic viability of the media organizations that diligently serve these diverse communities. It is in New York’s best interest to strengthen their capacity to fulfill their vital role as the voice of the different communities, fostering informed and engaged citizens,” Mikhael Simmonds, CCM Executive Director, said.

New York State is home to a vibrant array of over 700 community media outlets, which not only comprise an essential segment of the state’s media fabric but also function as small businesses that are intertwined with the local economy. They often serve as the primary news sources for many communities.

Based on data received from a third of the agencies contacted about their advertising allocations, the researchers analyzed $216 million spent on 90 advertising campaigns covering various periods between 2015 and 2023. They found that the state’s community media received a meager 2.6%, about $5.6 million of the total $216 million spent on media buys over the decade.

In contrast, a total of 61.5%, equivalent to $133 million, was spent on traditional mainstream media. State agencies, meanwhile, collectively spent $42.4 million, constituting 20% of the total $216 million, on social media, tech and ad-serving/targeting companies. This amount represents nearly eight times the agency ad spending that community media received, according to the report.

“Given that community media makes up a significant portion of outlets in our ecosystem, for it to receive only 2.6% of the advertising dollars flowing around New York State confirms the vast disparities we’ve known existed for years,” said Darlie Gervais, Manager of the CCM Advertising Boost Initiative. “Our hope is this report opens a more vibrant discussion about community media’s vital role, extensive reach, community issue coverage, and trustworthiness among the diverse communities so our state can better sustain them through increased revenue.”

Findings from the report that support the insights:

• The Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance allocated zero of its $3.9 million in ad spending on community media.
• The Office of Children and Family Services spent a paltry $17K of $2.2 million in ad dollars on community media.
• The Gaming Commission, which has the largest advertising budget of the agencies surveyed, spent only $5.2 million, out of $201 million, on community media outlets.
• The Department of Agriculture spent only $3,485, of $4.6 million, on media ad buys in community outlets.
• The Board of Elections spent $199K, out of $4 million, on advertising in the sector.
• The Department of Labor spent $144,000, out of $497K, on community media.

The report urges New York stakeholders to reduce these inequities in ad spending on community and ethnic media, and highlights the critical need for legal, administrative and structural reforms to address these disparities. Through transparency, equity and accountability in advertising distribution, New York State can bolster community media’s sustainability, nurture the region’s vibrant media ecosystems, and ensure that crucial campaign messaging from state agencies reach communities that are under-resourced, and underrepresented in traditional media.
“Community media is the last defense to news deserts,” Simmonds added. “Redirecting a portion of the state’s advertising budget to community media is more than just an expenditure; it’s an investment in the heartbeat of our communities. These local businesses thrive, underrepresented voices are amplified, and the civic fabric is strengthened when we make this crucial shift.”

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About the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY

The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, founded in 2006, is a public graduate journalism school based in the heart of New York City’s media capital. With affordable tuition and extensive scholarship support, it prepares students from diverse economic, racial and cultural backgrounds to produce high-quality journalism. The school offers an M.A. in Journalism, M.A. in Engagement Journalism, and M.A. in Journalism – Bilingual Program (English/Spanish).

About the Center for Community Media at the Newmark J-School

The mission of CCM is to serve news organizations that provide essential local coverage for populations whose voices and issues are underrepresented in mainstream media. The Center serves as a hub of information, resources, and training aimed at increasing the sustainability of this news media sector.

For further media inquiries:

Jehangir Khattak, Director of Communications | Center for Community Media at Newmark J-School | jehangir.khattak@journalism.cuny.edu

Rachel Davila Ramirez, Director of Communications and Marketing | Newmark J-School | rachel.ramirez@journalism.cuny.edu

This article was originally posted on November 28, 2023.  Read the article the SIPA website at https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/news/saving-journalism
Anya Schiffrin is the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia SIPA. She prepared the following report on the recent Saving Journalism conference.

Using city advertisements to support local news — a policy put into place by then Mayor Bill de Blasio — has, over the last four fiscal years, funneled $67 million into New York City’s ethnic and community media, de Blasio said during a recent appearance at Columbia.

His remarks came at the third annual Saving Journalism conference, held at Columbia University’s Forum on November 3. The one-day event gathered donors, scholars, and practitioners to discuss policy interventions around the world that help support quality journalism. It was organized and sponsored by SIPA’s Technology, Media, and Communications specialization in partnership with the Centre for Media Technology and Democracy at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University and Columbia World Projects.

The need for funding for local news is a global problem, one that worsened in New York when many local businesses went out of business and stopped advertising in local news outlets.

“Any level of government has such extraordinary spending power and economic impact, but it’s rarely thought of as a tool for changing society in and of itself.”

— Bill de Blasio, former NYC mayor

The conference’s first panel discussed a New York City solution —the 2019 executive order, signed by de Blasio, that channeled local government advertising to support local news. The policy has been successful in New York largely due to the efforts of Jose Bayona, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media and Graciela Mochkofsky, the dean of the Newmark Journalism School at CUNY, both of whom have put enormous efforts into working with local news outlets and government agencies that place advertising.

“Political will is what made this happen,” Bayona said.

De Blasio explained how he embraced the idea when it was first proposed and spoke of the secondary efforts that government spending can have — especially in a place like New York, where the operating budget during his tenure was some $100 billion a year.

“Any level of government has such extraordinary spending power and economic impact, but it’s rarely thought of as a tool for changing society in and of itself,” de Blasio said. “We think of the government norm is you spend a whole bunch of money to procure a good or a service to serve people. And that’s good, that’s fine. And of course, we should do that with integrity, we should get the lowest bid whenever possible, all those things. But there’s a second level that is often missed, which is that the amount of money we’re talking about can have a seismic impact in other ways.”

SIPA’s involvement in the policy discussion about using government advertising to support news dates to 2010, when a team of SIPA students worked with me on a Capstone report for the government of Bhutan about the risks of using government advertising to support news. The country’s monarch, King Jigme Khesar, wanted to support the media as part of Bhutan’s transition to democracy; the country had begun subsidizing local print outlets, many with low circulation. Our student team wrote up a 120-page report with case studies of successes and failures in Argentina, Canada, Colombia, India, South Africa, Sweden, and the UK, and made recommendations as to how to avoid common pitfalls. Two of our students flew to Bhutan to present their findings and the government of Bhutan changed their policies accordingly.
Since then we’ve kept discussing the risks of government advertising in conferences we’ve organized and in three volumes we’ve edited on the problem of media capture—about the risks of soft pressures end up influencing editorial processes.

However, in the United States the success of New York City’s efforts has encouraged other cities to follow suit, said panelist Steve Waldman, founder of the nonpartisan Rebuild Local News Coalition.

As New York’s policy has inspired other governments around the United States — including in Chicago, Connecticut, and California — we helped the Rebuild Local News Coalition and CUNY’s Advertising Boost Initiative, which recently launched a media toolkit for other cities that want to emulate New York’s success. Specifically, we contributed some insights based on our research of international cases. As part of the planning meeting in April 2023, we invited Australian professor Sally Young (who we had cited in our 2010 report) to come and update us on where things stand in her country. Jonathan Rose of Canada also came; it was exciting to finally meet in person the people we’d quoted in 2012.

“Part of the reason why this is such a popular idea is it doesn’t involve new spending. It’s just saying, you’re already spending this money, you already have an obligation to get the money out into the community, but it’s not being done in an equitable way or in a way that can really get down to community organizations”, said the Rebuild Local News Coalition’s Waldman.

This success of the New York City executive order is in large part due to the efforts of Mochkofsky and members of her CUNY team, who helped implement the executive order by working closely with local outlets, many of which had never received city advertising before and didn’t have relationships with the ad buyers who place the adverts. They set up an application process for news outlets and the program channeled funds to outlets, such as the Haitian Times, which had never received city advertising before. The measure helped the community outlets that cover local news vital to the city.

“I really, really want to urge people to spread the gospel of this idea and see where it can be achieved,” de Blasio said.