Trump Doesn’t Get to Decide Where the People Get Their News—And Neither Does Zohran
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani—can we put you down as a “no comment?”
By Joe Maniscalco
Donald Trump received an uncharacteristic bit of pushback after banning CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House, and he deserves to get a helluva lot more. He still defended his naked authoritarianism standing outside Gracie Mansion this week alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, rambling on about how he has an “obligation” to keep fake news out of the White House.
“I have to say, I don’t even think the Mayor would argue with that,” Trump continued. And nope, there was no argument from Hizzoner. Not surprising, however, since New York City now has a Mayor who enjoys freezing out press he doesn’t like just as much as Donald Trump.
“I told the president that we were going to have all of the members of the press here,” Mayor Mamdani said when it was his turn to speak. “That is something I believe in no matter the opinion or the critique.”
That may be what the the current Mayor “believes”—but it’s certainly not what he does on the job. On the job, his office routinely sends out what they call the Mayor’s “Press Schedule”—but all it amounts to is a list of events that are “closed to the press” or “available to invited press only.” Sometimes, members of the press are told that on-site attendance to this or that event with the Mayor is “RSVP only.”
Work-Bites hasn’t yet attempted to cover an event with the Mayor by RSVPing because outside of one incidence earlier this year where someone from the Mayor’s Press Office told us they were “overwhelmed,” we’ve never gotten a single acknowledgement to a request for comment on any story we were covering.
Does Work-Bites have a better shot at getting a comment from Donald Trump than Mayor Mamdani?
It doesn’t matter if we were seeking a request for comment about plans to privatize public housing in Chelsea, ending the 24-hour work day for home care workers, protecting New York City municipal retiree healthcare, or anything else—the Mayor’s Press Office has never responded to a single request for comment made via email, text, or telephone.
The only reason Work-Bites knows what the Mayor’s “Press Schedule” actually looks like is because we started obtaining the releases on our own. We’ve never been sent one, even after making repeated requests to the Mayor’s press people to put us on the list.
This administrative blackout didn’t always exist. Before becoming mayor, candidate Zohran Mamdani and his office did respond to requests for comment from Work-Bites—even if that response was, “sorry, no comment.”
Back in Nov. 2024, Mamdani talked to Work-Bites at length about his position regarding proposed legislation seeking to protect retiree healthcare from diminishment. You can read that story here. It was an important piece that people concerned about the future of retiree healthcare continue to reference and talk about.
WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer referenced that same Work-Bites story, too, during an episode of his show looking at retiree legislation and Mayor Mamdani’s position on it.
Say what you will about former Mayor Eric Adams—his office was far more responsive to Work-Bites’ requests for comment than the current Mayor.
The following month, after attempting to reach Mamdani for a follow up on this story involving the Democratic Party’s failure to fight for home care workers forced to work round-the-clock shifts, Work-Bites got what amounted to a very polite, “no comment.”
But that was it. Since then, Mamdani has never responded to, or acknowledged—outside of that one time mentioned above—a single request for comment Work-Bites has made.
NYCHA, too, has begun to follow suit, although they are happy to talk to other news outlets attempting to cover what the city is trying to do to public housing in Chelsea, and elsewhere. Maybe they got the memo from the Mayor’s Press Office not to talk to Work-Bites?
For this reporter, all this is practically unprecedented. Virtually never before have I ever had an elected city official fail to respond to sustained and ongoing requests for comment.
Way back in the day, a former City Council Member by the name of Anthony Weiner once stormed into my former newspaper office down on the end of Sheepshead Bay Road in Brooklyn demanding that my editor fire me.
Weiner had declared Sheepshead Bay clean of debris after securing the services of an NYC DEP skimmer boat, and he didn’t like that I had accurately reported how there were still beer cans, paper cups, and a dead cat floating near the foot of Emmons Avenue the next day.
Nevertheless, that guy continued to respond to my requests for comment when my valiant editor refused to terminate my employment.
Heck, former Mayor Eric Adams’ office actually called Work-Bites last year to announce he was abandoning his efforts to strip New York City retirees of their Traditional Medicare coverage and herd them into a predatory Medicare Advantage plan.
I later learned that even Marianne Pizzitola, President of the New York City Organizaiton of Public Service Retirees, hadn’t heard that news yet.
Work-Bites will continue reaching out to Mayor Mamdani’s Office for comment on the stories we cover on behalf of the working class people of this city. And let’s see where RSVPing gets us. As it stands right now, Work-Bites might have better luck trying to get access to the White House.
Speaking of which, earlier this week, nearly than 30 news outlets signed onto a letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists declaring in part that the “decision to ban CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House sets a dangerous precedent, one in which the President decides what the American people can know and from whom they can know it.”
Work-Bites agrees—but Mayor Mamadani shouldn’t be able to decide what New Yorkers can know and from whom they can know it, either.