Mayor Adams — who has for months lamented what he sees as unfair press coverage of his administration — announced Tuesday he’s considering restricting media access at City Hall so that only one reporter per outlet can be admitted to the building at a time.
“We’re going to do an analysis of how we are using space in the building for the press,” he told reporters at City Hall. “We’re going to make a determination if those who have multiple seats, if they’re going to have to decide which one of them are going to have to give up one.”
Adams’ comments came in response to a question about what he’s doing to increase media access at City Hall for ethnic and community-based outlets.
He said Fabien Levy, his deputy mayor of communications, will lead the “analysis” on which outlets should lose seats. It’ll be wrapped up at the start of next year, the mayor added.
The City Hall press corps is housed in the building’s Room 9, one of the most storied outposts of journalism in the country.
Speaking at Tuesday’s briefing, Levy affirmed the mayor’s office controls seating assignments in Room 9. He then singled out reporters from the Daily News and Politico in attendance about the proposal to limit access to one journalist per outlet.
“How would you feel about that?” Levy told the two reporters as Adams, seated next to him, laughed.
It’s not clear how the mayor’s office would enforce such a policy in Room 9.
The push to potentially curb press access at City Hall comes after the NYPD laid out plans last week to remove reporters from their longstanding offices inside Police Headquarters in Manhattan and relegate them to a trailer outside the building. The move prompted The News and six other media outlets to send a letter to NYPD leadership asking them to stop the “disconcerting” decision.
Adams defended the NYPD’s move in Tuesday’s briefing, saying it’s also about increasing access for ethnic media outlets.
“It wasn’t a lack of transparency, it’s just the opposite,” he said, adding that the trailer outside NYPD headquarters is larger than the press room.
Adams’ musings about press coverage come as his 2021 campaign remains under federal investigation and his administration is in the midst of implementing unpopular city budget cuts.
In his weekly “Hear from the Mayor” radio appearance on Dec. 10, Adams said there has recently been “negative headlines about me that are so sensational that they are hard to believe.”
