‘Trying to help you’: Pressed on rant over coverage, Mayor Adams insists media is problem
Mayor Adams got defensive Wednesday when pressed about his attack on the media a day earlier when he implied a largely white press corps has displayed bias in critical coverage of him.
During a Q&A with reporters following his budget presentation, Adams was pressed about his gripes over coverage of his failed bid to get Albany leaders to make changes to the bail reform laws, which included his claim that “My story is being interpreted by people that don’t look like me.”
In an exchange with a Post reporter, Adams claimed that he didn’t intend to paint the city press corps as racist, even though he’d made a point of noting a day earlier that it’s largely white.
“I want you to go back and listen to what I said yesterday, and see if I use the term ‘racist’ at all,” he said when The Post asked him why he called out the press corps as “racist.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about. When you hear something comes from my mouth, you use a predisposition of your life to interpret what I say,” Adams scolded.
But he didn’t explain why he chose to play the race card over seemingly innocuous coverage of what was widely expected to be a doomed bid to sway Albany.
In a jab at The Post, which was the only major newspaper to endorse him for mayor in the crowded Democratic primary, Adams also took aim at its characterization of his diatribe, saying that “when I express something based on my observation, it’s called a rant.”
On Tuesday, Adams started a news conference about summer jobs by angrily claiming that multiple reports about his failed effort to win support from Albany were unfairly negative.
“If you want to acknowledge or not, I have been doing a darn good job and we just can’t live in this alternate reality,” he said.
Adams repeatedly suggested that race played a factor in coverage of him, saying, “How many blacks are on editorial boards? How many blacks determine how these stories are being written?”
He also threatened to stop fielding “off-topic” questions at his news conferences if the coverage of him didn’t improve.
On Wednesday, Adams claimed his motives were entirely altruistic.
“I am trying to help you,” he claimed. “I want you to grow. I want you to be kinder, I want you to be emotionally intelligent, not to feel that everyone is trying to attack you.”
Hizzoner also said that “there’s nothing personal I have against anyone.”
“We are at a place that we have to ask ourselves: If everyone is not around the table, then are we really getting different views from everyone?” he said.
“That’s what this is about. And if I’m just a black mayor, that is just going to go through the motion and say, ‘Oh, you know what? I got elected,’ and not use this platform to go after the systemic inequities.”
Adams added: “I know what my African-American reporters are going through. I don’t see reporters with — that’s from the Sikh community. We have to diversify this. And it’s a painful conversation.”
