Morano questions office independence under mayor's communications operation

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your testimony.

I appreciate it.

Sorry for the frog in my throat in advance.

Congratulations on your appointment, first of all.

I spend the better part of my professional life in broadcasting, so I have a tremendous appreciation for the importance of local journalism, particularly independent outlets that ask questions government officials would rather not answer.

And I actually agree with much of your testimony, especially your point that when local journalism disappears, government accountability.

suffers.

But I want to examine whether the city is doing enough to protect the independence of the very media it's supposedly supporting.

And I want to follow up on a couple of the questions the chair asked and the speaker.

In your testimony, you say your office exists in part to sustain publications that hold public officials accountable.

But in September,

The mayor moved your office under his director of communications, right?

Isn't there an inherent tension between supporting independent journalism and being overseen?

By the political communications operation of the very administration those journalists are supposed to scrutinize?

Thank you for that question.

Yeah, as I said, I can't really speak to the decisions that were happening prior to my arrival or how that transition happened.

But I will say in conversations with publishers, I think many publishers see this office as a conduit to their relationship with City Hall and government.

And they do like the...

The placement of the office within the director of communication.

So some publishers have different opinions on it, but I think that as somebody who's almost their relationship to the government, I think that some people find it almost more natural for the office to...