Media & Democracy
Dear Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani,
The ethnic media ecosystem will not survive another four years of neglect from City Hall.
We write to you as representatives of journalistic outlets working in the greatest city in the world—its media capital. Over the past four years, the New York City government’s commitment to partnering with our sector has significantly declined, as evidenced by its failure to fulfill the advertising mandate of Local Law 83.
In 2021, Local Law 83 (LL83) required all city departments and agencies to spend at least 50% of their advertising budgets on ethnic media. The law was rooted in a 2020 executive order intended to correct long-standing imbalances in media spending. Prior to that, research conducted by the Center for Community Media (CCM) at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY) showed that 82% of the city’s annual $18 million advertising budget went to large mainstream outlets with little connection to immigrant and working-class communities—the lifeblood of this city. The remaining 18% was left to the rest of us.
The law was a groundbreaking attempt to correct this inequity—the first of its kind in the United States. Over the past five years, according to CCM, New York City has directed $72 million to ethnic media publishers and broadcasters, and similar laws have since been adopted in several states and cities across the country.
“Local Law 83 has done a great deal to help small, family-run ethnic media stay afloat at a time when stability and sustainability are serious challenges due to shrinking institutional funding opportunities and disproportionate competition from social media and Big Tech advertising platforms,” said Wania Andre, publisher of The Haitian Times.
However, under the Adams administration, LL83 has steadily lost its force. The city’s annual advertising spending has declined. This year, Comptroller Brad Lander’s office issued a sharp rebuke: total advertising expenditures fell by 84% after the law took effect, and in FY24 all city agencies spent only $7.2 million on ethnic media. There is also a lack of transparency around how the city decides which ethnic media outlets receive advertising contracts and why.
“For those of us working in this sector, this is not an abstract issue of legal compliance,” said S. Mitra Kalita, publisher of Epicenter NYC and CEO of URL Media, a multiplatform network representing three dozen outlets, primarily serving communities of color. “It’s the difference between being able to sustain multilingual election coverage or not. It’s the difference between whether elderly immigrants learn about benefits through the newspapers they read—or not. It’s the difference between whether some ethnic media outlets can survive—or not.”
Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, you have pledged to prioritize working-class and immigrant communities—and that must include their information needs. Ethnic media do more than report the news. We explain policy to residents of immigrant neighborhoods, help them access services, and build trust at a time when AI and algorithms are fueling disinformation chaos. Information gaps in a city like New York can quickly become life-threatening.
Your transition committees do not include a media-focused body—which is why we are raising our concerns publicly. We, the signatories of this letter—50 ethnic news outlets across the city in 14 languages—urge you to restore this lifeline of city advertising spending by fully enforcing LL83: restoring advertising levels and ensuring greater transparency in advertising and spending decisions. Your ambitious agenda—and its success—depends on New Yorkers understanding the resources available to them. Widespread access to childcare, housing, or transportation is impossible without reliable information explaining how to obtain those services. And that depends on us.
The FY25 budget is still in development. Seize this opportunity to reverse the damage and ensure that our outlets are included in the city’s advertising expenditures, so that together we can deliver news, information, and resources to New Yorkers.
Respectfully,
Center for Community Media, URL Media, and the undersigned:
Allewaa
Alarabi Newspaper
Amsterdam News
BK Reader
Black Star News
Bronx Post
Bushwick Daily
ChelseaCommunityNews.com | LGBTQ Community News.nyc
NepYork
New Jersey Urban News
New York Parrot
News India Times
Parkchester Times
Parle
Prothom Alo North America
Queens Latino
COLlive.com
Desh
Desi Talk in New York
Documented
El Diario NY
Epicenter NYC
ForumDaily
Greenpointers
Gujarat Times
Haiti Liberté
Harlem Community Newspapers, Inc.
Harlem World Magazine
Illyria Newspaper
Immigrantly
Impacto Latino
Irish Echo
ITV GOLD
Jewish Post
Khasokhas
Muslim Media Corporation
Radio Soleil
Roosevelt Islander Online
Sing Tao Daily
The Immigrant’s Journal | Caribbean American Weekly | Workers’ World Today | New Black Voices
The Bukharian Times
The Indian Panorama
The Lo-Down NY
The Manhattan Times | The Bronx Free Press
The South Asian Insider Weekly
The South Asian Times
The Bukharian Times
Time Television | Weekly Bangla Patrika
Turkish Journal
Urdu News
Weekly Awaz
Weekly Bangalee
Westchester Hispano | New York Hispano
December 18, 2025