12 APRIL 4, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Press ban an insult to our intelligence
“This event is closed press.”
We can tell you from experience
in the newsroom that we’ve seen
this phrase all too oft en on emails from
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s offi ce since he
fi rst took offi ce in 2014.
Normally, this phrase is applied to
various events on the mayor’s daily
public schedule. But of late, it’s become
something of a motto for the de Blasio
administration — specifi cally when
it comes to public meetings about
community jail plans for Kew Gardens
and other neighborhoods of New
York City.
Last week, the mayor himself
attended a recent meeting about the
Kew Gardens jail proposal — and
of course, that event was “closed
press,” too. Were it not for a recording
confi dentially provided to us from
an attendee, we would not have
known what the mayor told a Queens
community asked to bear the brunt of
a new jail.
In recent weeks, meetings of a
community advisory council on the
Kew Gardens jail were also closed to the
press, despite the boisterous objections
of council members who rightly
EDITORIAL
A copy of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s public schedule from March 27, as sent to the Ridgewood Times by email. Note
the highlighted text at bottom which indicates that the mayor’s meeting in Kew Gardens “is closed press.”
believe that reporters’ attendance was
necessary to inform the public about
the matter.
When asked why the press was being
kept in the dark at these meetings, city
offi cials off ered the most asinine of
excuses: that the presence of reporters
would stymie a real conversation about
the Kew Gardens jail, and prevent
community residents from saying
their piece about the subject.
To have a real conversation on any
important issue requires a knowledge
of information about the issue — but
that’s diffi cult to achieve if reporters
are prevented from gathering
information about the issue, and then
telling the public about it.
Moreover, it sends a terrible message
to the council members and the public
at large — that they can say what they
want at a meeting, but they cannot
share their remarks outside of that
forum. It’s the city’s way of controlling
the narrative, and skewing public
opinion about the project.
When he first ran for mayor in
2013, de Blasio pledged that his
administration would be far more
open than his predecessors. We’re not
sure what his defi nition of “openness”
is, but it’s certainly nowhere close
to the actual Webster’s dictionary
defi nition: “the free expression of oneʼs
true feelings and opinions.”
Call the Mayor’s Offi ce at 212-788-7585
and urge him to lift the reporter ban on
community advisory council meetings
on the Kew Gardens jail plan.
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ESTABLISHED 1908
Co-Publishers
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA SCHNEPS
Editor-in-Chief
ROBERT POZARYCKI
Classifi ed Manager
DEBORAH CUSICK
Assistant Classifi ed Manager
MARLENE RUIZ
Reporters
EMILY DAVENPORT
MARK HALLUM
CARLOTTA MOHAMED
BILL PARRY
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