URL Media's S. Mitra Kalita says some network publishers got zero city ad dollars in 2026

Thank you.

We have a saying in Queens that Queen gets the money, so here Walter Sanchez and I am.

But I would like to introduce myself.

My name is Esmitra Kalita.

I live in Jackson Heights, Queens, and I have been a journalist for 30 years covering and leading news teams nationally and locally.

I was a senior vice president at CNN, managing editor of the LA Times, executive editor of Quartz, a page one writer for the Wall Street Journal, a reporter for Newsday, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post.

I've also written two books and been honored for my work in newsrooms, including the Pulitzer Prize and the Edward R.

Murrow Award.

In 2020, I left corporate mainstream media as the pandemic, racial justice protests, and presidential election collided.

With our democracy in crisis, I decided my efforts might be best applied to local news.

Today, I am the CEO of URL Media, which stands for Uplift, Respect, and Love.

love, which is a revolutionary idea in media, and the publisher of Epicenter NYC, a community-centered news organization rooted in Queens covering issues citywide.

As CEO of URL Media, I am here on behalf of the New York City publishers in our network, numbering more than a dozen, whose experiences with city advertising admittedly vary widely.

Some tell us they have received zero advertising dollars in calendar year 2026.

That has not been the case for Epicenter NYC, which I also run, but I stand in solidarity with New York City publishers, nonprofit and for-profit, large and small,

ethnic and mainstream, and veterans of print, broadcast, and digital, just like myself.

We are stronger together.

New York needs an ecosystem, not a handful of survivors.

Local Law 83 was a pioneering policy, and we've talked about much of the decimation of that.

In the interest of time, I'll speed this up.

The implementation has not lived up to the promise.

You have cited the reports showing that spending has fallen 84% since the law took effect, and we've raised concerns about late reporting and the addition of major mainstream outlets to the ethnic and community media directory.

This distinction matters.

A growing percentage of a shrinking or narrowly defined advertising budget is not a growing.

investment in our communities.

Translation, you cannot shrink the denominator and call it a success.

I have been sounding this alarm for more than a year.

I have raised these concerns with council members, mayoral transition committee members, Governor Hochul's policy advisors, and members of the state senate and assembly.

Last December, URL Media and the Center for Community Media tried to get in front of the issue, and we signed an open letter

signed by 51 outlets publishing in 14 languages asking the incoming administration to restore spending and transparency.

We also made a number of recommendations around some of the issues that have been raised around press passes, access, spend by city-supported institutions on local and ethnic media.

They're in the appendix.

I don't want to take more time, but I do want to mention that we laid out quite a number of issues.

We are still today asking for a functioning, predictable, and transparent system.

We are thrilled, and I want to be clear about this, by Mazen Sidhamed's appointment to lead the Mayor's Office of Ethnic and Community Media, and we look forward to working with him.

He understands the work, the communities, and the stakes, and the urgency.

His appointment is an opportunity for a reset, but it must also come with the staffing, authority, resources, and accountability necessary to make that reset real.

We are asking this in the middle of a media landscape

that has changed dramatically since this law passed.

For example, our audiences are consuming more video now.

AI-generated summaries can draw on our reporting without sending readers back to us.

Publishers in our network describe steep web traffic losses, in some cases approaching 40%, and in other cases unknown because of the prevalence of bots and unknown visitors to our websites.

At the same time, government funding cuts have left community outlets without the money to deliver information and resources to New Yorkers, while the retreat from DEI commitments and pressure on subscriptions and audience reach are hitting multiple parts of our business.

Even those who have diversified our revenue feel under assault.

Creators and influencers are also a part of this changing landscape.

I do not believe we should pit them against established publishers.

I do believe we need transparent standards for everyone receiving public advertising dollars.

Who was selected?

Why?

What were they paid to deliver?

And which communities were reached?