He just said wait, sorry.

Okay.

Good morning.

And welcome to today's uh hearing government operations, state and federal.

At this time, please everyone silence all in any electronic devices.

Also, there is no eating food or beverages here in the hearing room.

Also at this point moving forward, no, and I repeat, no one is to approach the dais.

Finally, if you wish to submit an in-person testimony, please see one of the sergeant at arms.

Thank you so much.

Uh Chair and Speaker, we're ready to begin.

Thank you very much.

I'm Gail Brewer, Chair of Communion Government Operations, State and Federal Legislation.

I want to thank everyone for joining us today for our hearing on the mayor's office of ethnic and community media.

Members of the public and everyone who joins us today, I think I see Councilmember Ruan.

I don't know where he went, but he was here.

I'll now turn it over to Speaker Menon for her opening remarks.

Thank you, Speaker Menon.

Thank you so much, Chair Brewer, and I really want to thank the chair for holding this important hearing.

I'm Julie Menon, Speaker of the New York City Council, and we want to thank members of the public for being here today for this hearing.

So this issue that we are discussing today around uh the mayor's office of community and ethnic media is not new to the city council, and it's certainly not a new issue for me.

I've long recognized the importance of ethnic and community media, which led me to start investing in that over a decade ago.

In 2016, when I served as commissioner of the mayor's office of media and entertainment, we announced a million dollar grant to CUNY's journalism school to create new programs that would help New York City's community and ethnic media outlets stay competitive and bring them further into the digital age.

And we were really proud to announce that program.

At that announcement, here is what I said.

The diversity and breadth of New York City's community and ethnic media reflects the diversity of our city as a whole.

And it is crucially important to keep these outlets thriving.

These publications add key perspective to our local news landscape, and they keep New Yorkers in the know, whether their native language is English or Bangla.

We look forward to collaborating with the journalism school on this important initiative which builds on their history of providing excellent excellent training for journalists at com ethnic and community publications.

So that quote that I mentioned almost a decade ago still rings incredibly true today.

That is why the council passed local law 83 in 2021 to formally establish the mayor's office of ethnic and community media, codifying former Mayor de Blasio's Executive Order 47.

Local law 83 also requires mayorial agencies to spend at least 50% of their advertising budget on ethnic and community media outlets.

The council passed this bill because we recognize the crucial role that community and ethnic media plays in our city and to address the difficult media climate for small publications.

So I do want to say that when former Mayor de Blasia made that change in policy and the council passed that law, it had a significant impact.

Prior to the implementation of Executive Order 47 and local law 83, 82% of the city's advertising spending went to large mainstream media outlets, whereas ethnic and community media outlets only received 2.7 million dollars in the city's advertising budget.

By 2020, the first full year of implementation, that amount increased to 9.9 million dollars.

City spending on ethnic and community media peaked in 2022 when it reached a high of 23.1 million dollars.

In fiscal year 2025, 57% of city agencies' overall advertising spending went towards ethnic and community media.

It was 51% for fiscal year 24 and 40 percent for fiscal year 23.

However, that has not translated into greater monetary benefits, because overall advertising spending has decreased significantly.

In fiscal year 2022, the city spent 260 million dollars on advertising across all media outlets.

However, that number dropped to 70.4 million in fiscal year 2023, 28.8 million in fiscal year 24.

In 2024, just 7 million of those dollars went to ethnic and community media, less than a third of what it was two years before that.

So what has changed and why is the city's spending on media so much lower than it was just a few years ago?

Um, over the past summer, the council convened a series of forums to better understand this issue.

Between June and July of this year, we hosted round tables with black, Asian, and Latino community media outlets at City Hall, bringing together journalists and publishers.

And I know many of you came to that, and we really appreciate that.

In these meetings, we heard firsthand concerns about the city's drastically decreased media spending and investments in ethnic and community media.

Furthermore, participants expressed concerns about not having a point of contact within the city, and they felt that they didn't know how to contact the administration and that lines of connections that they had during previous administrations are now not existent.

Many also conveyed that their outlets are facing unprecedented financial troubles in this very challenging media environment for local media across the country, and significant decreased advice from the city have just exacerbated those difficulties.

I know many are concerned about the moving and staffing of the mayor's office of ethnic and community media.

So I know I have some questions about that.

I know the chair has some questions about that.

And we are here to get answers from the administration to hear from members of the media and to understand how we can support this crucial sector, which reaches all of the diverse communities in New York City with vital culturally sensitive reporting.

We must do more to invest in our ethnic and community media.

So thank you so much, Chair Brewer, and let me turn it back to you.

Thank

you very much.

And I think during the pandemic, some of the federal money helped a lot.

And you could see the difference because health information got out, and then you did a great job during the census doing the same.

So we know how important that media is.