New York City has long maintained a very particular characteristic: inclusiveness. And this year it is again reflected with the creation of the Office of Ethnic and Community Media to ensure that messages, promotions, or programs broadcast by the city reach New Yorkers in a uniform way and in their own language.
With this new office, communication between city agencies and the population marks the beginning of the human development of our communities, by receiving in their own language the important matters for their own well-being.
The legislation is known as Intro. 2313-A was sponsored by Councilmember Ydanis Rodríguez, Councilor Oswald Feliz, City Council President Corey Johnson, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
One of the main responsibilities of the Ethnic Media Office will be to coordinate the publicity of the city agencies for the diverse communities that exist in the five boroughs.
It will also require agencies to mandatorily dedicate 50 percent of their advertising spending, including print, digital, television, and radio publications, to ethnic and community media that are distributed throughout the city.
Eric Adams, who is likely to become the next mayor of the Big
Apple has stated on several occasions that ethnic media play a
a fundamental role in empowering our immigrant communities and
informing in the nearly 200 native languages spoken in the city.
The executive director of the office will be responsible for overseeing the
equitable distribution of advertising resources by agencies, developing a
comprehensive list of approved ethnic and community media outlets,
annually training city officials and employees responsible for the purchase of
advertising, among other assignments.
While this recently passed legislation is not new, in May 2019,
Mayor Bill de Blasio issued Executive Order 47 (EO 47), which requires all
major agencies to direct at least 50 percent of their annual budgets for
print and digital advertising to community and ethnic media. However, with
the new office, it is responsible for covering a greater number of news media.
During the administration of Mayor de Blasio,
Mr. José Bayona was in charge of this office for several years, who collaborated in this new change by highlighting the urgent
need to support reciprocal communication systems that promote dialogue,
especially after that, the less favored communities suffered the attacks
of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of them, for not obtaining the necessary and correct
information.
In this new era that is approaching for the city of New York, the Office of
Ethnic and Community Media reflects a social cause based on dialogue through a
wide range of tools and methods that the city will offer, to gradually
build trust and thus, build political processes, by achieving a sustained and
a significant change, from the municipality.