NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday tore into recent media coverage of his administration after just six weeks on the job, calling recent reports of his trip to Albany "unfortunate" and "frustrating" while also blasting a lack of diversity in newsrooms.
His criticism of the media coverage came as part of the mayor's opening remarks at an unrelated press conference where he announced a summer youth employment program.
The diatribe was prompted by what Adams called inaccurate coverage of his trip to Albany, where reports indicated his attempts to lobby lawmakers on changing bail reform fell flat.
"You know, you guys kill me. What part of Albany were you covering? 'Eric gets beat up in Albany.' What meetings were you guys in?" he asked reporters. "I'm trying to figure out, do you guys already write the stories before I do something and just live out what you have already written?"
Adams went to Albany on Monday to push for changes to state criminal justice reforms. The visit came a day after a woman was stalked and stabbed to death in her lower Manhattan apartment, allegedly by a man who’d been released without bail.
The mayor insists his meetings with lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, went well.
"We laughed, we talked about old times, we talked about how we're together on keeping our city safe," Adams said. "Andrea gave me a pear and an apple. We walked out and said in front of everyone that we are aligned in keeping our city and our state safe."
Adams said he attended Senate and Assembly conferences, stressing "there was no arguing, no yelling, no screaming."
"Areas we disagreed on we talked about it and we walked through them," the mayor said. "We talked about Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), we talked about violence, we talked about all of these issues in a civil way."
Adams implored reporters to stop distorting the news, arguing his race is leading to unfair coverage and blaming a lack of diversity in newsrooms for how he gets treated.
"I'm a Black man, that's the mayor, but my story has been interpreted by people that don't look like me," Adam said. "We gotta be honest about that. How many Blacks are on the editorial boards? How many Blacks are determining how these stories are being written? How many Asians? How many East Indians? How many South Asians? Everybody talks about my government being diversified? What's the diversification in the newsrooms? So everybody goes back with their predispositions and my role as mayor has been interpreted due to prisms of your realities and not mine."
Adams is now threatening to stop taking questions at press conferences.
"I'm going to stop doing off topics, because if you already have your perception of me, and you're already going to stick to what you think I am, then why am I doing this?" Adams said. "If you want to acknowledge it or not, I have been doing a darn good job and we just can't live in this alternate reality. I was blown away when I picked up the papers today. That did not happen in Albany."
"We all have the right to our opinions, we don't have the right to our own facts," Adams added.
Just last week, Adams signed an executive order reaffirming the city's commitment to the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech.
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