Originally published on LittleAfrica News | September 3, 2026
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New York City’s ethnic and community media outlets are being asked to meet detailed requirements to qualify for city advertising while a growing network of social media influencers connected to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is operating with far less public transparency, according to a new report from the Columbia Journalism Review’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
The report, produced with Columbia University’s Institute for Policy Dialogue, examines the administration’s use of influencers to distribute information about city programs and policies and raises questions about who is receiving taxpayer-funded payments, how those relationships are structured and whether New Yorkers can adequately track public money being spent on social media campaigns.
At the center of the report is a private Signal group called “NYC Creators Announcements,” which is managed by Emilia Rowland, the mayor’s director of new media and cultural communications. More than 200 influencers are reportedly part of the group. Members receive city updates, talking points and video clips that they can use in their social media posts, while also receiving invitations to city events and opportunities to interview government officials.
The group grew out of Creators4Zohran, a network of content creators that supported Mamdani during his mayoral campaign. The researchers identified 189 influencers with apparent connections to the administration.
Being part of the Signal group does not mean an influencer is paid. The report makes clear that some influencers voluntarily promote the mayor or his administration because they support his policies, want to provide information to their followers or value access to City Hall.
But a separate system allows city agencies to pay influencers for specific public-information campaigns.
According to the report, influencers hired through marketing and advertising firms working under city contracts can receive between $5,000 and $20,000 per campaign. The influencers are hired as independent contractors, while the advertising agencies handle the contracts and payments.
The researchers found that procurement notices for the marketing and advertising firms do not identify the individual influencers receiving the money. The mayor’s office also did not respond to multiple requests from the researchers for information about the relationships.
That lack of disclosure is at the heart of the community-media concern.
New York’s ethnic and community media organizations face a very different process when seeking access to city advertising.
The Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media requires outlets seeking inclusion in the Citywide Marketing Directory to submit applications and extensive supporting documentation. The office says it audits applications to authenticate that the information provided is accurate, and false or misleading information can result in disqualification. Being included in the directory also does not guarantee an outlet will receive city advertising.
For print publications, the requirements include media kits, rate cards, printer invoices, distribution information and physical copies of the publication. Digital outlets must provide media kits, rate cards and multiple analytics reports. Radio and television outlets must provide audience statistics.
Community publishers therefore have to prove who they are, demonstrate that they actually serve a New York audience and provide detailed information about their operations before they can even be considered for city marketing.
Influencers receiving thousands of dollars through city-contracted advertising firms are not subject to a comparable publicly visible process.
That disparity is particularly significant because the advertising and marketing agencies handling influencer campaigns are also part of the city’s broader advertising system that places campaigns with ethnic and community media outlets.
For community publications, the question is straightforward: Why should a newspaper, radio station or digital outlet have to undergo formal vetting and provide audience and financial documentation while the public cannot readily determine which individual influencers are receiving $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 from city-funded campaigns?
The issue becomes even more complicated because the influencers are being treated as independent contractors.
The report describes influencers being contracted through advertising and marketing agencies rather than being publicly identified in city procurement records. That means the public does not have a clear list of the individuals receiving the payments or a straightforward way to determine the total amount being paid to particular creators across different city agencies.
Questions have also been raised about the taxpayer-identification information used when individual influencers are contracted.
A contractor can legitimately provide a Social Security number or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN.
The more precise concern is one of public accountability. Because the city and the advertising agencies have not disclosed the identities of the influencers receiving taxpayer-funded payments, the public cannot determine which contractors are being paid, what identifying information was provided to the contracting agency or whether the payments are being properly reported for federal and state tax purposes.
That does not establish tax wrongdoing. It establishes a transparency gap that could be addressed simply by disclosing the recipients and the amounts paid.
The administration’s use of Signal creates another transparency issue.
The app provides encrypted communications and has a disappearing-message function. The concern is not that using Signal automatically violates public-records law. Rather, when a city employee uses an encrypted platform to communicate with more than 200 influencers about city activities, events, talking points and government messaging, New Yorkers have a legitimate interest in knowing how those communications are being preserved.
Government records do not cease to be relevant simply because they are created on a private or third-party messaging platform. The CJR research raises the question of whether communications sent through the Signal group are being retained in a manner that would allow them to be produced in response to legitimate Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL, requests.
If messages are configured to automatically disappear, the issue becomes even more serious because records potentially relevant to understanding government decisions or public spending could become difficult or impossible to retrieve.
City officials have said Signal can be used subject to applicable records-retention requirements. But the public has not been given a clear accounting of what retention procedures apply to the influencer group or whether its messages are preserved.
That matters to community journalists.
Community newspapers and ethnic media outlets regularly use FOIL requests to investigate city agencies, public spending, housing, education, public safety and neighborhood services. Access to government records is an essential part of local accountability journalism.
The ability to communicate with City Hall through an encrypted channel should not create a separate, less transparent communications system for favored influencers.
The CJR report also points to an important difference between influencers and journalists.
Journalists generally cannot accept payment or gifts in exchange for their reporting without creating serious ethical concerns. The report notes that influencers, by contrast, can be paid to create content designed to look like organic social media posts. It found that disclosure of paid relationships is inconsistent.
That distinction is especially important for communities that depend on ethnic and community media for reliable information.
José Bayona, the former founding executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media, told the researchers that ethnic and community outlets were the “original influencers” because of the trust they have built over decades.
The CJR report also notes that influencers can reach younger and underserved audiences and can provide useful information about city services.
There is therefore a legitimate argument for the city using social media creators to reach New Yorkers.
But, reaching new audiences should not come at the expense of transparency or fairness toward the community media organizations that have been serving those same audiences for years.
New York’s community media outlets provide neighborhood reporting, multilingual news, local advertising and accountability journalism. Many operate with small staffs and limited resources while complying with city requirements to establish their circulation, audience, rates and legitimacy.
They should not have to compete for taxpayer-funded advertising against an opaque influencer system in which the public cannot readily see who is being paid or how much.
The CJR researchers recommend greater disclosure, including publicly identifying influencers working with city agencies, explaining their relationships with the city and establishing consistent rules for disclosure of paid partnerships.
Those recommendations should be particularly relevant to New York’s community media sector.
Taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going. Community publishers deserve to know that the rules governing access to city advertising apply fairly. And, New Yorkers deserve to know whether the person delivering a message on their social media feed is an independent voice, an unpaid supporter of the mayor or a contractor being paid thousands of dollars through a city advertising campaign.
The solution is not necessarily to eliminate influencers from city communications.
It is to apply the same basic principles of transparency, accountability and disclosure to everyone receiving public advertising dollars.
If ethnic and community media organizations must open their books, document their audiences and undergo city review before becoming eligible for advertising, the public should receive comparable transparency when taxpayer money is used to pay social media influencers.
City Hall should disclose who is being paid, how much they are receiving, which agencies and advertising firms are making the payments, what campaigns they are working on and how the communications surrounding those relationships are being preserved.
New Yorkers should not have to file FOIL requests, rely on leaked information or wait for investigative reports to find out how their tax dollars are being used.
For community media, this is ultimately not a fight between old media and new media.
It is a question of equal treatment.
Whether the messenger is a neighborhood newspaper, an ethnic radio station, a community website or a social media influencer, public money should come with public accountability.
