Kalita proposes implementation plan, quarterly outlet reporting, and modern metrics
Kalita asks for a clear Local Law 83 recovery plan, quarterly outlet-level reporting, open decision-making, modern measures beyond impressions, and regular engagement with publishers. She says advertising must never reward favorable coverage or punish scrutiny.
Today, I am asking for your partnership to modernize the system.
Do not make it more opaque.
We also need to reconsider how we talk about ethnic media.
The term can make us sound peripheral.
In a city as diverse as New York, where two-thirds of the city is non-white, we are not peripheral to the people we serve.
We are New York City.
At Epicenter, we helped more than 20.
20,000 New Yorkers connect to COVID vaccines.
And I just want to take a moment to thank you, Councilwoman, for including links to how to get vaccinated to Epicenter in your weekly communication with your constituents.
Our work did not stop at publishing information.
Today, we are helping communities understand their rights amid immigration enforcement like we have never seen before in English, Spanish, Bangla, Chinese, and other languages.
We do not just tell people a service exists.
Community media close the distance between a public promise and a person's ability to use it to gain access.
That trust is valuable, but it is also labor intensive.
Translation, cultural adaptation, answering questions, and community distribution should not be treated as free extras attached to an advertising buy.
I'm going to speed this up.
I asked the council administration to take five concrete steps.
First, publish a clear implementation and recovery plan for Local Law 83.
Explain how every agency will meet its responsibilities, identify gaps in current outreach, and restore meaningful investment, not simply report a percentage.
Second, require quarterly outlet-level reporting.
Show the agency's campaign outlets, language, boroughs, or audiences served, the amount allocated, and the amount actually paid.
We must report agency and intermediary fees separately from the dollars.
Piggybacks on Eleanor Tatum's excellent point.
We should include a creator in influencer spending.
I do want to also mention that the delays in payment from the city results in delays in payment to the agencies, which results in delays or non-existent payroll that our publishers have to meet.
It's a citywide problem.
We're aware of it.
Keep going.
Third, open the decision-making process.
Publishers should know who selects outlets, what criteria are used, and whom to contact when an entire language, community, or neighborhood is being missed.
Eligibility and placement decisions must be protected from political favoritism.
Advertising, as we've discussed, must never be a reward for favorable coverage or withheld as punishment for scrutiny.
Fourth, modernize what the city buys and how it measures value.
We must, as we've discussed today, go beyond the web impression and recognize how publishers deliver on engagement.
For example, through community partnerships and cultural competent outreach.
Evaluate whether a campaign reaches the intended residents, not simply whether it generates inexpensive ad impressions.
Fifth and finally, establish regular engagement and a broader plan for media resilience.
Give this office a dependable mechanism for hearing from publishers.
And yes, the website as they start.
Work across city agencies and with state government on complementary policies that support journalism, workforce development, shared...
production resources, and the transition underway in our industry.
New York is held up as a model for community advertising policy, community media advertising policy.
At conferences across the world, I hear praise for our law while knowing how uncertain and interrupted the experience has been for publishers at home.
We should be able to stand behind that model, not bite our tongues when it is celebrated.
New York, too, is the media capital of the world.
Remaining so requires more than preserving famous brands.
It requires sustaining the newsrooms, broadcasters, creators, and community relationships that make this city legible to the people who live here.
This is not a request that government replace our business models or purchase our loyalty.
It is a request that government communicate effectively, spend transparently, pay us fairly for our work, and honor the responsibilities.
We need both an ecosystem that sustains this work and an infrastructure that values it.
Thank you so much.