Mayoral Candidate Eric Adams held a town hall today promising that if elected he will create the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media, along with providing paid advertising campaigns to local ethnic media if elected.
The plan’s main focus would be to communicate announcements to communities through the outlets they regularly receive their information from in the language and form they are accustomed to. The hope is that messages from city agencies will reach local ethnic communities more effectively.
“I truly appreciate the critical role these outlets play in empowering our communities, and I am committed to expanding the resources they need to continue bringing vital information to New Yorkers,” said Adams.
The plan would expand Executive Order 47 signed by Mayor Bill De Blasio in 2019. The order mandated that all city agencies spend at least 50 percent of their annual print and digital publication advertising in local community media outlets.
The expansion of the plan will ensure the inclusion of New York City’s ethnic TV and radio outlets with no more than five staff members already within the scope of the executive order.
A Community and Ethnic Media Marketing Executive Director position will be created and tasked with upholding a unified message of the City’s services, distribution of paid advertisements, campaigns to community media.
Adams guaranteed the fair distribution of information and announcements to community outlets, not just to mainstream media outlets which had been an issue in the past. Adams also wants to build a “real-time dashboard system” to view how city agencies are communicating and distributing funding with local ethnic media.
The expansion of Executive Order 47 would be a welcome change in many ethnic communities around the city. The lack of effective communication from city agencies to local media outlets has often served as a barrier to basic information for many whose first language isn’t English.
“I want to ensure that we’re going to use the full power of city government to get the message out and inform people,” said Adams.
