New York News Forecast (From The News Conference: Real and Powerful 2023)

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes.

Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

Go inside the news with this New York news forecast, which offers an insider's take of key people and issues you'll see in the news throughout the year. I'm Jaci Clement, CEO and Executive Director of the Fair Media Council, and this discussion was part of FMC's annual event, the News Conference: Real and Powerful. It features New York Post City Hall Bureau Chief Bernadette Hogan, Katie Honan, senior reporter for the city, and Dr. Lee Merengoff, who is the director of the Marist Institute for for Public Opinion at Marist College. Moderating is Tim Schild, the chair of the Radio Television Digital News Association and former news and programming director of WCBS NewsRadio 880. Take a listen as Tim begins the program.

Thanks, Jaci. Good morning. I always love being involved in these events with the Fair Media Council, and I was excited to be asked to do this, and, um, I'm really excited that we have brought together a group of very talented and very smart people to have a conversation about what the expectations are for news in the New York region in the coming year, with the knowledge that things come out of nowhere and become news. So already it's only a couple of weeks into January and it feels like 6 months' worth of news has happened. But let me begin by introducing the panel. Let me first introduce and say hello to Bernadette Hogan. She is the City Hall bureau chief for the New York Post. Before that, she served as the newspaper's Albany bureau chief and had a front row seat for the pandemic rise and fall of Andrew Cuomo and the historic introduction that we all got to Kathy Hochul. Katie Honan, I'm a big fan of her work. She is a senior reporter for The City, a digital news outlet that is not-for-profit, nonpartisan, and is focused on what I love, High-impact accountability reporting. If you don't know the city, run to it today and look at the work that they do, including Katie's, because it's, it's terrific. Katie is well known in New York journalism circles, having previously worked for the Wall Street Journal covering City Hall, where we see she is sitting in room 9 today. And I love that, having worked in that, in that area many, many years ago. She also worked for DNAInfo covering Queens, which is, which is good. Dr. Lee Merengoff is a personal friend of mine for 30 years. And may I also note, Lee, that you are a mentor and teacher of Bernadette. Bernadette went to Marist, and I love that connection. And that's an awesome thing.

This is the first time that that's happened to me on a panel.

That you were on a panel. I love that. Lee is assistant professor of political science at Marist, but we all know him as the director of the well-regarded Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, or the Marist Poll. Lee is a longtime political observer and commentator. You know who I am. Why don't we get started? Let me start with you, Bernadette. I asked everybody in advance what stories you think you're gonna be focusing on in the coming year. What are the storylines that you wanna keep a watch on? And Bernadette, I know you've been watching closely the impact of the migrant crisis, which has really got a lot of tentacles in a lot of places. What do you expect in the coming year? I mean, we just had some news a couple of days ago with the, the mayors of Chicago and New York reaching out to the governor of Colorado and finding some success in, in, in getting some of that, uh, pushed back. Tell me about what you're looking for.

Right. It's really quite extraordinary. I mean, according to City Hall's tally, there's been over 35,000 migrants from the southern border that have come into New York City. since the spring, and that number is growing by the week. Right now, New York City is already having a big issue with their homelessness crisis and how they are able to give shelter to these people. I mean, just besides the migrants from the southern border, the regular, I suppose you could say, homelessness population is already an issue in the city, but now this just compounds it. There's over 25,000 of these individuals now in emergency hotels, mega hotels in major business districts like Midtown Manhattan. And it's a huge mess, and it's something that is going to have financial impacts on the city's budget, not just this upcoming year, but for years to come. And it's, it's totally exploded. And it really is interesting because it takes a national problem, and it's right at home in New York. Of course, we've been reading about crisis on the southern border. For years and years. Of course, it came to— it elevated during the Trump era with a COVID-era policy designed to say, you know, listen, we don't want people from other countries coming in due to the pandemic, but it was also a way to curb immigration. And now President Joe Biden is also grappling with how to handle an influx of people coming from also, I mean, right now, countries that are having difficulty with conflict, democracy, etc., especially Venezuela. And so we're We're seeing people coming into the country and coming into New York City specifically. They don't speak the language. They don't have papers where they can work and, you know, provide for their families and also contribute to society as they say they want to do, et cetera. So it's a real big mess. Mayor Adams has talked about it. Other politicians have talked about it, you know, and again, it's going to have impacts for years to come.

Does it, do you think, Bernadette, that it could have tentacles to the suburbs, any of these people flowing out?

Right. No, that's a good question, because actually a couple of months ago you had some people on the federal level, level like Senator Gillibrand, saying, listen, we might need to start looking at housing for these people outside of New York City, because, you know, what are we going to continue to do, jam-pack them into hotels where they can't cook, they can't— again, they can't find work? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good question. We have heard that some individuals who have family members or, you know, some opportunity, some connection within New York, they might have moved to other towns or counties, et cetera. But those, that's been more few and far between. It's not as widely spread as, say, the city relocating. Right now, there's no active plan to relocate people from the city to upstate, but it might come to that. Upstate cities like Utica, for example, have a history of accepting refugees from other countries and having populations there.

Mm-hmm.

But again, this is, you know, this is, this is something that is just, you know, it's, it's over 6 months going on and they're going to have to have another solution soon than just putting people into hotels.

Katie, good morning to you. You know, you've covered City Hall and Queens for, for, for a long time in your career. I asked you one of the things that you were to tell me a couple of things that you're looking at this year. And the thing that stood out to me brings Queens and City Hall together, and that's the awarding of gaming licenses to 3 in New York City. Is that what it is? And my favorite baseball owner, Steve Cohen, is getting involved. He had a meeting of, uh, of what, his season ticket holders, a couple of days ago, and he was asking them about, um, you know, what they would like to see. What do you think is going to happen there? Uh, when is it this year that these licenses have to be awarded? And there's a lot of money attached to, uh, to what it's going to take to get gaming in New York City. Where do you think it's going to play out this year?

Well, I mean, since you brought it up, I do want to talk briefly about that panel, that session that Steve Cohen hosted at Citi Field on Saturday. It was for the community. Many people were invited to join in, but the issue there, you know, Steve Cohen doesn't own the land that Citi Field sits on. It's technically a park. In order to build anything on the parking lot would require state legislation for park alienation. The, the Wilpons, previous owners of the Mets, who, along with related companies, they're redeveloping parts of Wilts Point, which is across the street. It's separate to that. They had tried years ago to develop the parking lot in a mall called Wilts West. It was struck down. So I think the likelihood of Steve Cohen building on the parking lot, I think he'd like his season ticket holders to believe that it could happen, but it's a lot more difficult to develop on parkland than it is to say, I don't know, by Carlos Correa or Justin Verlander to come to the Mets. So I think, you know, Saturday's session, a lot of people who went to it said that it was a little bit misleading. I saw some coverage of it that was incorrect, saying that it's Wells Point. That's something different. So there's a lot going on in that area, 2,500 units of affordable housing coming across the street, which has nothing to do with Steve Cohen. I know he, you know, maybe he sits in his office at Citi Field and he looks across at something that he wishes looked different, but he really has no control over it. As for the gaming licenses, you know, there's a lot of people, there's talk about putting Putting a casino in Times Square. There's a Coney Island bid. Of course, there already is a casino in Queens at the Aqueduct Racetrack. It's a— I've never been. I think it— you don't have table games and stuff like that, so it's limited. It's not a full casino license. So I think, you know, I think to even have it, it's half a billion dollars. It's, it's very costly to do it. So that's why you see a lot of these bids from multiple groups of people, real estate developments. Everyone kind of wants a piece of this. And yeah, I mean, maybe Steve Cohen can make a play for it, but in order for him to develop it on the parking lot, you know, which he said was vacant asphalt, when in reality his municipal bonds are actually tied to the parking lots. And I mean, if it was vacant asphalt, couldn't I park there for free during the season? I think, Tim, if you drive in, you have to pay pretty a lot of money to park in the Citi Field parking lot. So those are the issues there, and we'll see who gets the license, and we'll see how that plays out. And, you know, I'm sure there, wherever it is, there may be community pushback. Because of all the things in New York City, what people might need, whether it's schools or housing, casinos may not be a priority for actual residents, not so much the developers. I'm sure they would like it.

Lee, good morning to you. From your position where you're sitting, there was really no red wave anywhere in America other than Long Island in the midterm election, but that was a pretty big deal. what went on in Long Island. And obviously, if we talk about the 3rd Congressional District, there's a lot of news that's still going to be had out of there. Talk to me about what you saw in November and what you think the impact in the coming year is.

Well, I think there's 2 kind of 2 pieces to that. And the first piece is the— well, first of all, I want to congratulate you on your many years of service. You came to Marist College to watch a Very young Paul, many decades. We had both had a lot more hair at that point. And but I wouldn't say you were a cub reporter, but you were sort of new in the field. And we certainly were very, very low tech in those days. So it was like, do remember that it was a lot of fun. So congratulations on your well-deserved. But I'm glad to see you're still, you know, on the forefront of doing things in the field because you ran such a quality shop over at WGN.

Thank you.

And so it's always fun to work with you in elections and stuff. Having said that, so, you know, this red wave didn't materialize. I think there's some important point to be made for how polling has developed, that consumers of polls who are seeing the results of all these polls sort of need to be plugged in on, particularly on some parts of how the sausage is being made. And one of the things that went on this year was there was a tremendous sense of this impending red wave, you know, which was going to have presumably even have impact in very blue New York, which it did. And we had a governor's race which was far closer than, than, you know, we've had in a long time with Lee Zeldin and also in the suburbs. And then in Long Island, we've seen And other parts of the suburbs, Hudson Valley, we saw major inroads by the Republican Party in a fairly unprecedented way. I guess Long Island reverted back to some of its old and true partisan tint. Hudson Valley, where 2 congressmen now are Republicans, that was a big piece of the national change right here in the Hudson Valley, right as they say in the movie, right here in Kansas, but right here in Hudson Valley. I wanted to say one thing just initially in the discussion, and that is we saw, and there was a lot of confusion. First of all, most people historically look for the party out of power to do very well in the first midterm election for the new president. So in this case, obviously a Democrat with Joe Biden, the expectation was that the Republican Party could pick up between 20 or even more seats in the House. The average number in the Senate for a first-term president is to lose 7 seats. That's hard to do these days because there aren't that many competitive seats, but certainly, you know, 3 to 5 would've been something that wouldn't have shocked anybody. But what we saw is the reports of the impending red wave were really, overexaggerated by an influx of partisan polls. And so if people, and I know consumers of political information and polling very often go to places like RealClearPolitics and maybe the Cook Political Report or FiveThirtyEight, places where polls are aggregated and, but also, you know—

You look at them like a baseball box score. There's a rolling average and everyone is not equal. And that's the lesson we learned, right?

Exactly. And what they were doing is because it was a tremendous influx of polls, more by Republican groups than Democrat groups, but you saw it, for example, in the case of the New York governor's race, which Hochul won by, I believe, 7 points or thereabouts. The Trafalgar poll, which was a Republican-based poll, had that one dead even. And the Data for Progress poll, which is a Democratic-leaning poll, had Hochul ahead by 12 points, right at the very same time. Those 2 polls were conducted within a day of each other. So they were measuring the same thing, but with very different lenses on. And so unfortunately, that fueled the— in states around the country, fueled the whole thesis of the impending The wave actually became a tsunami as everybody tried to add on to the seats that were expected. So we did have events in New York. We did have events in the suburbs, both in Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, which were real and for a variety of reasons moved those areas in a Republican direction.

So, you know, it brings up the question, who do you believe? And maybe Katie would want to weigh in on, you know, let's talk about George Santos. I mean, it's really the story of the year so far for all of us in local media. I saw an interview I think PBS did with Grant Lally, who is the editor-in-chief of the North Shore Leader, who broke the story on the financial concerns about George Santos back in September that few took note of. And what, as opposed to like assigning blame, like whose fault was it? And we all, I think, can share. I was a news director and helping, you know, mount the coverage of politics leading into November. And I didn't see it. I was not aware of the story. But what Grant said is that this has really energized local newsrooms. Katie, do you, would you agree that the Santos story is like, oh my God, you know, We need to dig in deeper, and it's a great lesson for young reporters. What do you think?

Yeah, I think looking at what went wrong in that coverage, or even the lack of coverage about George Santos, it can kind of provide a guidebook of what to do when you're reporting on someone. And obviously a lot of times you're writing these— look, I mean, and I'll actually take a step back. The reality is there's fewer reporters than ever.

Yeah.

We're more overworked than ever. And there's a big gap, I point out, between the political consultants, of which there are many of them, and they all make a lot of money to do— we could argue what— I don't know what they're doing a lot of the times. So you could argue that, you know, and I know a lot of the people who worked on Robert Zimmerman's campaign kind of came out and said, we were screaming this from the rooftops. They really didn't have the goods that the New York Times story eventually had. But I think Going forward, it's really made me think anytime I write about really anyone, especially running for office, instead of just taking at their word what they say, I mean, it really doesn't take a long time to call up CUNY and say, can you just do a graduation check for this person? He says he graduated from Baruch in this year. Could you just like prove that to me? I've done it in the past for people. You could check it on military records, that kind of thing. Looking at his finances, clearly something was up. So I think as a reporter, it made me think, how can I moving forward ensure that when people are speaking with me that what they say is true, what they say about them, there are ways to prove it. You know, saying he had relatives who were Holocaust survivors, that might be a little bit more difficult to prove. He did claim that some of his employees died in the Pulse shooting. That wouldn't have been that hard to prove looking at the list of people who died and checking it from there. Even just checking, you know, if you do an Alexis Nexis search on someone, you get their addresses, you get that kind of thing. You know, that may be delicate into more of like private investigative, like how much am I going to dig into a candidate? But I think the college one for me was the one that stood out because that is a very easy thing to confirm. It usually takes a few hours. And that would have just been the tip of what his issues are. But yeah, with that story going forward, I think I'd like to see how he actually will be as a congressperson, you know, because it's a crazy story. It's almost a comically insane story about just how much he's lied about everything.

Everything.

Everything.

But at the end of the day, he has constituents who live in his district and who now, I mean, they voted for him, but they voted for him thinking he was one thing, but how he actually will deliver for them as a— in Congress and what he'll actually do.

Although the Nassau Republican Party has sort of indicated, I guess yesterday, the day before, that he's not really welcome in the long term if he gets that point. I'm just gonna, if I could jump in real quick.

Please do.

I just thought that Katie underscored a very, very important point, and that has to do with resources. And, you know, we know about, you know, the national media and how that's viewed and all that and followed. But, you know, democracy really survives very often or not on the quality and the resources devoted to local media coverage. And this is a, you know, just an unfortunate incident, but one that really underscores the point that the resources, you know, and the support has to be there. Because, you know, even in the example you're saying, Katie, there's a lot of ways to have found out lots of information easily. However, if you've got a whole slew of congressional races and state Senate races and state assembly races and governor and Senate races, it's very hard to kind of like keep tabs on all of them. Although this one, you know, the fact that he— his mother died twice, I think, was probably a tip also.

Bernadette, what do you, you know, what do you take from the Santos story as a young reporter, as a professional who, um, you know, a pretty— you're, you're a dogged reporter, you've got a good reputation. What do you take from the whole thing?

I mean, number one, I mean, I think it's a combination of you have to check everything yourself, you have to do everything yourself in order to find out what is the truth and what is not. But in reality, like Katie said, and like what Lee said, if you don't have the time or the resources, sometimes that is difficult. So when you're reporting on certain races, and again, I mean, look, I covered Albany, I now cover City Hall, but I was covering these races and be they congressional, legislative, or the governor's race, you know, wherever you dip into it, you have to make sure you have to— you have your basic— your basics. So I do think that it's a really good lesson in, again, just not taking what this person says or what this candidate says at their word. I also thought it was very curious that we mentioned the Nassau Republicans, but there was a story, and I can't remember which outlet wrote it, but there was a story about how House Republicans in leadership, it was a running joke that they knew that maybe Santos, everything that he was saying was not up to snuff. And I thought that that was very curious because, you know, if you had people that were supporting his candidacy, or maybe not supporting it outright, but not saying anything, so it was a silent— they were condoning it. That's— it's fascinating that you would run a candidate who you, you might be, you might be running the risk of a couple of lies coming out. And by a couple, I mean his entire resume is a lie. But again, I do think it's It's just a good fact-checking lesson. You know, you said you're from here. Okay, like, let me just— it's a good lesson for any young reporter. And, you know, as somebody who I did learn on the job up in Albany, my— I cut my teeth in Albany with the Post, with Spectrum News, and I learned a lot from the older reporters around me and from the sources, people like Lee, who I would call and ask, you know, This sounds weird, or is this, you know, is this new? How, how, what's the precedence for this? You kind of learn on the job. And I've always found that with seasoned reporters and even Katie, you know, working in Room 9 with Katie, when I say, listen, I'm not really sure how I get at this. And they might say, oh, you know, look it up on here, or you can utilize this tool. It's very helpful. And if you don't have people that kind of assist with leading the way with younger reporters, or even in local newsrooms, then that trajectory of getting at the truth will be marred in the future. So it's, again, it's just so important to have that support system.

I had a quick question for Katie or Bernadette, if, and Lee, if you wanted to jump in, but the reporters might have the best perspective on it. Have you seen, you know, Santos, when he came and met some members of the media, he only spoke to selective organizations, obviously ones he thought would be friendly, and they didn't necessarily end up being friendly like the Post. But, you know, he talked to, right-wing talk radio and was on Fox and got hammered there. And do you see any of this translating into slowing down the impact of your access to newsmakers when you need— like, we would love to sit down with a newsmaker and have a big news conference. Remember the old Anthony Weiner news conference when he and his wife met the press about all his issues? I mean, you don't see that anymore, do you? I mean, it's— they're Do you fear as a reporter, as reporters, that, that this Santos situation will cut off access for people who are in power because they don't want to expose themselves to a lot of questions?

Well, I mean, one thing that I think of too, um, and, and it was a little bit there with when Anthony Weiner had that press conference, but look, I mean, now politicians don't have to reveal some kind of truth to a reporter anymore. They can just tweet out a video. We saw it with former Mayor Bill de Blasio. He made his announcements about, I'm running for governor, I'm not running for governor, I'm running for Congress, I'm not running for Congress, in sort of oddly shot videos that he just tweeted out. So I think that is— and obviously you're always going to go, and this is not new, going to media people that you think are going to be sympathetic to you or even just people you have a prior relationship to. It's sort of part of why, you know, one of the things of being a reporter is you want to develop relationships with people, but you don't want to seem too chummy. It can be very complicated to how you balance that line. So I think, yeah, I think, you know, maybe we see with George Santos, but it's certainly— I don't think it started with him. And I think the role of social media also, I mean, not to sound too, I don't know, academic. I know you're the professor, Dr. But, you know, I think that has changed what we see. You know, 20 years ago, politicians and other people in power, they really only had one way to get their message across to the public, to their constituents, and it was through the media. Now, You know, we see with Mayor Eric Adams, he can post videos. He'll sometimes post videos of him out with people, and it's a, it's a way to get his message out without facing any kind of questions from, from people who have those questions for him.

Right. I mean, I also think, so for example, with covering former Governor Andrew Cuomo, maybe we would have an opportunity before the pandemic to ask him questions at a handful of events. I remember I remember I could count on one hand one year. I was like, I think there was like maybe 10 maximum events where we could ask them questions. But I've always found, though, that you can get your stories in other ways. If a principal won't talk to you because either they don't like your outlet or they, you know, they want a softer landing story, that's fine. You know, there's always a way around it. And there's also people that are interested parties. So that might leak you information or just say, hey, you know, you should, you should take a look at this. Or again, if you call somebody that's well-versed or a watcher of the news and of these, the happenings, there's always a way to get your story. But it is, as Katie said, if, if a certain politician wants to put out their message via social media, that's fine, they can do that. But it's also like, well, who's watching? The mayor of New York City, of course, has a large following. But if you're, I hate to say, a random assemblyperson that was just elected, you do need the media and you do need to be telling the truth. You're a George Santos, you're a first-term congressman, you ran once and lost, and now you're the biggest news story of this cycle. So, you know, you do need to watch and you do have to have cons— there are consequences. And I think with the Santos story, it has shown that there are consequences. to lying, whether you're a Republican or you're a Democrat.

Obviously, that seat, incidentally, would be not surprising where that seat was going to flip back to the Democrats anyway. It's a seat that Santos won by 8 points. 2 years earlier, Joe Biden won that district by 10 points. So this is one of those, like the Hudson Valley, which was, you know, a surprising flip. But, you know, in the polling area, I mean, it's, you know, It's the media's job, unfortunately, to be a gatekeeper to, you know, in the case of the point I was talking about, reveal who the sponsorship is of the poll and what their track record is. And because a lot of what was going on was just partisan. Tim, you may not be aware that I just signed a contract to be center fielder for the New York Yankees.

I want—

That should be part of my resume going forward.

The memes related to George Santos have been really entertaining. You know, sitting on the bench with Messi winning the World Cup and things like that. You know, it is comical, but it's a great lesson. And I really do, I like to find the positive in everything. And I did love that quote about how it's gonna energize newsrooms. It's gonna make us wanna be skeptical, but we're gonna have to be skeptical about, I think we all share the blame. I don't mean you, but I mean the Republican Party, the Zimmerman campaign. We all could have done better. And I think it's a great lesson. You know, as long as we can learn from that, that would be awesome. A topic that I had on my list, though nobody asked, was crime and bail reform, which I know you all actually have had on your list. You know, we have the State of the State today and we'll hear from Governor Hochul. And the idea is she'll probably address crime and, you know, where we are. I wanna ask each of you how you think bail reform may play out. Will there be reform to bail reform? Uh, and, and, you know, what is the expectation from a public perception point of view? Is, is crime— is what's going on from a crime point of view in New York City a narrative? And is it scaring people in the sub— there's a lot of tentacles to this question, so I apologize. Is it keeping people like me away from the city? Uh, is it making us all want to love remote work from Jersey and Long Island and the Hudson Valley? Um, You know, there's a lot to it, but it's a really dramatic time for New York City to, to tackle a couple of these things. So let me start with you, Bernadette. Uh, where do you think, um, this issue of crime and then bail reform, uh, is, is, is going this year? And I noticed you contributed to a story, I guess it ran either over the weekend or the other day about, uh, grocery chains and others putting together a coalition to try and, um, to try and, uh, get a little bit more protection in the bail reform. arena for, um, these shoplifting recidivists? The— so, I mean, I'm sorry that there's so much to that question, but it's a big topic.

Sure. No, I mean, number one, I think as long as the mayor of the City of New York continues to hold press conferences on crime— and I'm not saying that as if, you know, he's talking about crime because that's just what he wants his, his agenda to be. No, I mean, look, like the NYPD has been very active over the past year. So is the mayor. They've been active in the areas such as homelessness and mental illness, in addition to, like you just said, with retail theft and shoplifting. And bail reform since 2019 has been— has been— it's, it's not quite the slogan for everything that's wrong with, I guess, crime in New York. But it's something that people in law enforcement, Republicans, and even Democrats, again, like Mayor Eric Adams, or, or even, you know, other Democrats like, say, for example, Inez Dickens up in Harlem— she's a steadfast Democrat, has been for years— who are saying, listen, something has to be done because our criminal justice system just isn't working. And there's a whole lot of components. But I think even Governor Kathy Hochul, before— today's the 10th, before the new year, she tried to add in or start a conversation with the legislature to, um, to put in more tweaks to the law itself. And it's, it's a very complicated conversation too, because it's, you know, the mayor talks about adding in this thing called judicial discretion, allowing judges to have more of a say, I suppose, when it comes to, uh, setting bail for somebody. But then there's also issues like repeat offenders and recidivist crimes. The legislature did make changes last year, but people in law enforcement or the mayor say, hey, it's not enough. On retail theft, so that's interesting. I spoke to an owner of 3 Food Towns in Queens yesterday who was telling me, listen, I hired a private security guard for at least one of my grocery stores because I have some items like, say, Red Bulls, baby formula, shrimp, meat, etc., that just are continuously coming off the shelves. and it's costing, it's costing the business. And he said, listen, it could put us in danger of even operating. And the reason why he thinks that either cops are not responding that quickly or, you know, it just continues to happen is because there is a supposed lack of consequences, right? I think just the way that the law works right now is retail theft under a certain cost, I guess, I believe it's I'm not even gonna give you the exacts, but, but my point is, under a certain amount, under a certain financial price tag, it— there's, there's little to no consequences if a perp is booked. They just get an appearance ticket and they can go back out into the streets. So this one owner I was speaking to said, listen, I— The, the amount of shoplifters we catch is at least 2 a day, and that's how many we catch. So you have a bunch of people that are saying, listen, this is impacting our livelihood. At least, you know, help us, help small business, because we are the backbone of the city. So I think going back to the State of the State with Governor Kathy Hochul and what her big plan is for crime, a lot of it does rest on her shoulders, and it also rests on cooperation with the legislature. And whether she does it by shoving some sort of fix in the budget which she has all the power in the budget, and the legislature has, has proven themselves to be particularly unfriendly within the last couple of weeks. We'll see. So she has the support in the mayor, she has support in other areas, but she has to find that support to make it happen. Otherwise, people are going to totally lose their minds.

Lee or Katie on crime and where we're going with bail reform. And Katie, maybe I'll quick ask you because, you know, the mayor does events where he speaks about crime, he wants to He wants to reframe the narrative that's out there where people in the suburbs are scared of coming in and working in the city. Is that reality? Is not that part reality, but is it reality that he, you know, where Adams is coming from, that police are doing their job to the extent that they need to be?

I think it's sort of a complicated thing because I know Mayor Adams has to some people, overexaggerated the crime fear, but then gets mad when crime is on the COVID of tabloids. So it is this double thing where he, he really amps up this idea of crime and then obviously doesn't always like some of the coverage of it. As for, you know, I mean, look, I saw a stat that there's tourists coming into the city's airports are at higher than pre-COVID numbers.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, we can look at the commuter rail lines and look at people coming in. I mean, if you, if you look at some of the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North numbers, weekend numbers are actually higher than pre-COVID numbers. So I think maybe there's a reluctance for people to go back to their offices. They enjoy working from home, but they're not as reluctant to go out to the city on the weekends for social engagements. And look, looking at crime, obviously there's the— looking at the raw numbers, um, what's up and what's down, uh, COVID was a really destabilizing factor across the world and obviously in New York City. So you take into, you know, I think it'll take time to rebalance that out, although there were some crime numbers going up pre-COVID. But also there is that perception. And for the media, you know, people say, oh, the media blows crime out of proportion. There is that balance because you want to report what's going on. You don't want to do it recklessly. You don't want to do it without putting things into context. But we also have an obligation to, if someone gets murdered, we have an obligation to cover that. Whereas Eric Adams, I know he's done a lot of initiatives putting more police officers in subways. Around this time last year, he brought back what was known as the Anti-Crime Street Unit to target certain, you know, you can almost kind of guess where some of the major crimes will happen. As for people's perception and fear, I mean, I know it's been years where I think a lot of people for years in the suburbs, there is that stereotype of the suburban person afraid of the city. You know, it seems like a time-honored tradition for people from certain suburbs to be so scared of New York City, or maybe it was much safer and better and greater when they lived there before they moved out to the suburbs. That seems to be the sort of New York, uh, tri-state, uh, tradition. But whereas, you know, there is that true perception of crime, and I think things will improve as, um, as we kind of hopefully move further away from the pandemic.

Yeah, I just—

go ahead, Mike.

And then to that, I find it interesting how much Governor Hochul is making of crime, you know, in terms of her, you know, wanting to be perceived as someone who is on the front line of this when during the election, you know, the Democrats kind of let the crime issue get away from them. And I think what happened in the suburbs, we're talking about in the beginning and in the Hudson Valley, was that the crime message became identified as, well, first of all, it's the second highest message second highest issue following inflation, but it became a part of the rally cry of the Republicans, whereas the Democrats didn't identify rising crime, like for example, with gun control. And I assume if you were a Democrat and people talk about crime, they would want people to think about gun control rather than, you know, each individual incident. But former Congressman Zeldin obviously had the crime Literally at his own doorstep, um, during the campaign. And I think the Democrats really let that one go. And I think Kathy Hochul is in the business right now of trying to plug that up because, uh, it was not part of the Democrats' arsenal during the campaign. This, uh, and they really left a huge growing issue to the Republicans.

Um, not the sexiest of issues, but housing and transportation I think are really 2 critical topics that may play in the headlines over the course of the year. You talk about people remaining in the suburbs and a lack of housing and the strain on the system in New York City. You want to tackle first housing? Anybody? Katie, is there a concern about housing? Obviously.

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge concern about housing and not just in New York City, but Throughout New York State, and I know Kathy, Governor Hochul's State of the State today will— we've been told will address partly that. Mayor Adams has tried to address it. There's just a real need for more housing, and even, you know, building up density on Long Island, thinking of how fast and efficient Long Island Railroad is. I know there's been a push from some people to build more, to build denser housing along the railroad. Maybe getting into some issues there locally of of people who, you know, don't want even a 6-story building in their neighborhood or their village. But again, there's, there's a real need for housing. Mayor Adams yesterday talked about some plans and some recommendations that his administration had to turn office buildings into residential, which is actually— can be very complicated if you imagine like an office building, how there's windows along the center, you know, but there's in the center, it's just a big thing unless you're going to live in a big loft. So that is, you know, that is the biggest issue, the rising rents. If you look to see how much it is to rent a 1-bedroom apartment in really any part of the city, the numbers are out, it's insane. So when you look at how much, how much money it takes just to live, you know, to just live in a studio apartment, there's clearly a need for more housing.

Right, right.

No, exactly. I mean, The cost of living, be it housing, be it grocery shopping, gas prices, etc., everything has gone up within the past year. And it's also unfortunate that this has happened right after the coronavirus pandemic when, you know, people either lost jobs or maybe they moved out of their apartment in the city, or actually maybe they signed an apartment in the city where they got a COVID deal. I know a bunch of my friends did. And it looked awesome. And then a year later, their rent was raised by $1,000. And that's just something that, you know, it's, it's a margin of people can't afford that whether you're working. But if you're working and have a job, that's one thing. But if you are a mother, you're a single mom, you have 3 kids and you're working 2 jobs and you're trying to stay in, you know, your affordable housing unit, like, how is that even possible? So it's something that the mayor has been very keen on. He's made, as Katie said, a couple of announcements. Yesterday, his big thing was something that he campaigned on, converting office space into residential housing. That's been a really big issue just because of the way that the city's regulations and laws work. You can't convert certain buildings that were built after a certain year, and it's very complicated, and they also need assistance from the state to speed up that process. It would definitely be really helpful. Also, it would be helpful to the business community. Because a lot of these developers or people who own these buildings in Midtown Manhattan or the Financial District, places where used to, used to have office workers going in 5 days a week, it was so busy. Now you have people that are either working fully remote or hybrid, and these people are also wondering, well, what the heck do we do with these buildings? So it's also a way to assist the economy and, uh, you know, the business community, what they're going to do with Lee, anything on housing?

I'm gonna—

No, no, just, I think both Katie and Bern, you know, touched upon this. You know, this is sort of part— partially an aftermath of COVID but clearly, particularly in downtown Manhattan, there's gonna be a need to make it more residential because it's not gonna survive commercially. And, but yet, you know, it's a great place to live. Just as a, you know, from a distance on this, both of you alluded to the, to the, this is not just a quick coat of paint and making a swinging door go one way in the residential. It's much more complicated, which I assumed I hadn't really thought about, but it makes all the sense in the world given the potential regulations. And it's not a quick fix.

You know, the, the thing that I, that I always think about when it comes to, to what will happen post-COVID is, you know, what happened post-9/11 to New York City. It was this amazing transformation of Lower Manhattan that you couldn't not have even imagined in the, in the months and the years after 9/11. But there is this, you know, it's this incredible and wonderful space, and, you know, looks different.

Yeah.

From a nostalgia point of view, I did love what it was like back then, but it, you know, what New York City did post-9/11 to overcome and to rebuild, you know, you wonder whether we have to wait another 5 or 7 years before we could really see the fruits of what all of these, this planning will be. And the idea of transportation and these projects that some have been put in place and some that are, you know, these new hubs.

Yeah.

Uh, Katie and Bern, in places like the Bronx, uh, and Queens, uh, that will attempt to make it easier for commuters coming from the north, um, into Grand Central or Long Island, maybe even into Grand Central. I mean, we're, we're in 10 years, we could be looking at a really different looking New York City and way the whole metropolitan area is connected. Or do you get a sense that that's a way we're going?

Yeah, I think so, because like you said, there's a lot of development coming to parts of the city that hadn't seen it before, and that is tied to transportation, the East Side Access, the connectivity with the Long Island Railroad. I think there will be, and they just need it. You know, I know that there's concern, and I do believe Governor Hochul will talk about it today, the number of people leaving New York, right, for a number of reasons, higher You know, taxes, they want to live somewhere else, maybe they just want to go where it's warm. They don't want to get stuck in a snowstorm. There's a lot of reasons for people's migrations that, that aren't just because of COVID or taxes, but what will be done there. But even with that, there are plenty of people still coming to New York City, to New York State, and they have to live somewhere. And they need to have livable places to be. They need to have good transportation. And, you know, you brought up transportation. That's the other concern, the MTA and its financial stream. You know, it needs more money.

It needs—

even before the ridership dipped because of COVID it needed money then. So that's the other concern.

Burn, anything on transportation? You know, Kathy Hochul, she only won by a few percentage points, a small, you know, the smallest margin of victory for a Democrat in in a long time. And, you know, you wonder whether she's going to be the governor of upstate and not necessarily the governor of, you know, the New York metropolitan area. And there are concerns in the suburban communities down here that there may— they may get some short shrift because they don't have the influence, you know, not even, you know, they don't have the influence they used to have.

Yeah.

Right.

Go ahead, Bernadette.

Oh, no, I was just going to say, I mean, I mean, covering the legislature, right, you know, you do have the majority of— you have a lot of legislators that represent upstate, but the power, be it in perception, or, you know, just look at the financial power of Wall Street, it comes from New York City. And so there is— I mean, it's just, it's a historic— I don't want to say grudge, but it's a historic perception that upstaters just do think that they're shortchanged because all of the power and the money come from New York, even though of course Albany is where— New York City might as well just be a small, like Binghamton or Syracuse, because you do go there to lobby for laws to get changed and money, et cetera. But, you know, Kathy Hochul could win some support by focusing on suburban transportation. I mean, You know, you go up to some of these upstate communities, you can't get around if you don't have a car. And a lot of people who are impoverished don't have cars and they're walking, you know, and they're walking to a dollar store. So it's like if she does focus on some of these things that can be fixed, be it the Hudson Valley, which again is not that far from New York City, she could, she could see some wins. But in terms of New York City, I mean, congestion pricing is something that's on the table. It's very controversial. It's just, you know, whether it gets pushed back even further or not because of COVID because people, you know, the, the conversation around it isn't there yet. It is important. I mean, when I go to the subway and I'm late, or, you know, a train doesn't come, it's annoying, and it makes you think, well, you know what, what's my alternative?

Mm-hmm.

And when people are thinking, what's my alternative to something that should work, that's a real big problem for City officials and state officials.

But you're an equestrian, so you should just have a horse apartment.

Central Park is right here.

I was just gonna say, Tim, real quick, that the— what's interesting when you talk about the suburbs and how they became much more Republican, I mean, the Democratic Party right now doesn't have a real strong footprint in the suburbs. If you mentioned that Governor Hochul's from upstate, obviously The mayor of New York City is from New York City. The attorney general is a New York City person. I mean, the Democratic Party sort of, you know, left alone an area where, you know, there's so many votes and potential swing voters are higher in the suburbs. And therefore, you know, they really missed out. So the whole— to your point, Katie, on the state of the state, I mean, this is a political document, surprise, surprise, and it's going to have a much more non-city— not that the city's going to take second shrift, but I think it's going to have a much more non-city focus because they were missing— she didn't get the upstate votes an upstater might have gotten, and she didn't get the downstate votes because they didn't have the footprint there.

I'm going to try and squeeze in a lot in the next 10 minutes. We'll give it back to Jacqui in a few. I'm going to give you a heads up on a couple of things I'm going to look for. I'm going to at some point ask if I can get it in, key people that you're going to keep your eye— that you're keeping your eye on. I'm also going to ask for some advice from all of you on how to coach consumers on consuming the news. What advice would you give to people who are news consumers as professionals that would make them better at consuming the news? So those two, that's a preview of two questions coming up. But I wanted to ask one that was in the chat box, which is, if resources weren't an issue or time or assignments weren't an issue, what would you go after? Like, what could you assign yourself as a story that you'd like to that you'd like to go after? You may have already, you know, volunteered it with either casinos or the relationship between governor and mayor, but is there something that really piques your curiosity that you don't have time on?

I'll just say, I mean, there's so much low— I mean, low level sounds like it's bad, but like it's not worth going after. But there's so much lower level corruption that could eventually lead to something bigger. We can't just report on everything. Um, you know, people come to us with complaints that could maybe show a pattern of, of whatever, you know, in, in a major city agency, but there's just only so much, um, that I can go after even within the courts and stuff like that. But, but those things can be so complicated and time-consuming. So if, if I had, you know, all the time in the world and 40 hours in a day, that's what I might wanna look at.

And that's what the city does so well. Katie, that's why I would, um, you know, the influence on politicians of friends and, you know, relationships, those are things that— and sometimes, Katie, you know, those stories take a lot of time to, to click together. So, so that, that, you know, that's great. I completely get that. I'll throw a, um, curveball. Bernadette, maybe, is, is all the COVID money that, that was out there for the past couple of years— we know on the federal level there was a lot of Um, there, there were a lot of shady deals that were done, and the federal government has done its best, but there's no way you're ever going to really investigate that. Is there COVID stories to be told still about all that money that was out there?

Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, the Department of Labor, um, there was just this report that all of this money associated with— I think it was insurance, um, just back payments, etc. Was lost. And the Department of Labor just— money went out to people, and I can't remember the figure, but it was a mammoth figure. And if you could just track where all of it went and get it back— I mean, look, we have a deficit on the state and the, and the city and the federal level. I mean, it's not just free money. So yeah, that. But then also, um, Governor Kathy Hochul and Some of her donors with medical equipment throughout the pandemic, you know, buying medical equipment that was sky-high prices and then it was never delivered. What happened to all the COVID contracts with the city and the state? And a lot of, I mean, at least with on the state end, what I was reporting on at the time, and then a little bit dipping into the city, people would just—

Yeah.

You would just submit like, I guess, numbers. There's not even contracts associated with some— the purchase orders, sorry. They're not even contracts associated with what was bought. So it's like pulling back the onion and getting at where all that money went, I think, would be fascinating. But then just really quickly, I think for a young reporter, one thing that would be totally worthwhile covering is stuff like school boards, Mm-hmm. city council meetings, Or just, I mean, local, on the local end, right? Like, you want to know why your water bill is so much higher? Go figure out what the, what the local elected officials are talking about. I think that's something that has been lost with local news. And it's just, you know, it, it makes an impact with, with consumers. And, you know, it's unfortunate that we don't have time.

Lee, can I ask you, anybody you're focusing on in the, in the current year, who, what personalities Who are you keeping an eye on this year in New York State for news?

The governor, and as she tries to expand her reach into different parts of the state and how she's gonna politically try to do that starting today with the State of the State. And I think also, you know, I think it's somewhat of a national issue, but, you know, these first-time congressional Republicans who were just elected in areas that Biden carried those districts, What are they going to do with the more extreme D.C. Republican Party? And how are they going to come back to try to hold on to their seats, given that self-preservation is such a big deal? You know, how are they going to try to maintain their incumbency, having only been one-term congresspeople coming down the road, and with a party that's really not a New York-focused Republican Party right now? As far as Washington is concerned. So it'll be interesting to see how the, the Lawlers and the Molinaros— I mean, DeSantis is a different case, but there's some, you know, legitimate congressmen who have got to find a way to, you know, appeal to moderate voters in their districts that are not in love with what's going on with the, with the, you know, what we saw with the speaker getting selected and the more extreme elements of the Republican Party. Washington. So I think I've been watching a lot of those congresspeople and how they kind of try to put a little distance between that, a little bit New York-facing on them.

Katie, any people you're keeping an eye on? Obviously, the man that works in the building that you're sitting in, Eric Adams.

Yeah, the mayor, and, you know, especially his relationship with the council and how that'll continue to play out. But I guess, you know, the other part of your question was how Advice for consumers, news consumers. I mean, I think it's easier than ever now with so many publications have morning newsletters. You know, mine does, but we mostly share our stories. But I think, you know, back in the day, in what people might consider the glory days of journalism, you had to read like five newspapers to know what was going on. I think now there's this effort to combine things to let you know what's going on. So I, you know, I suggest that people look like. Get a Google News reader. We have— that's the benefit of the internet, right? There are ways to read a lot of things and see what the top stories are. That isn't just Twitter, because that also is a resource for seeing what the big stories are. But that, that is it. And, you know, for all the doom and gloom about death of local news or whatever it is, there are still a lot of local publications that do need a lot of support, whether it's financially or just with clicks and reading it.

So, um, but what about this idea of paid sites or, um, you know, just quick, we only have a couple minutes, but a site like The City, which is asking people to, you know, you're not-for-profit, asking people to, uh, help support, help support the news. That is a new wave of journalism.

Yeah. You know, it's a nonprofit model. We don't have a paywall. Places have paywalls, but look, you have to pay for the news, you know, with the ad model sort of, um, collapsing. People used to pay for newspapers 30 years ago. I see friends complain about, oh, a paywall on certain stories, and it's like, you know, you have to get paid at your job, I have to get paid at mine. So there's a lot of ways to pay for it, whether it is a paywall and a subscription model, or whether it is a nonprofit model where you're getting grants and getting monthly subscriptions. But, you know, news has to be, you know, you have to pay for it somehow. So we do urge, you know, to support and subscribe to your local newspaper. And, and find other ways to support.

Bern, who are you watching? And then some advice for consumers of news.

Yeah, I mean, I'm watching the mayor and I'm watching the new people that he has put in to replace a slew of, of key positions, right? Like his chief of staff, who is a close friend confidant, just left. He's got a brand new host of deputy mayors, also has still a bunch of vacancies throughout the administration. Also the NYPD, right? That also just had a shakeup. What's going to happen with Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who has, you know, the mayor of course selected her and first female NYPD commissioner. You know, what struggles is she going to have to overcome, especially given the past couple of years? And then for advice, yeah, I mean, look, like it's, don't just read the Sunday New York Times. Beat reporters are reporting on the crumbs that come into, you know, large investigations. You have to read, you know, you gotta read the Times, you've gotta read the Post, obviously, but you've gotta read these other outlets like Katie's, the City. I mean, that have time to do investigative pieces. I mean, I think it's also just a product of being well-rounded. You can't just watch one show. It just, it helps with your perspective. It's like talking to a bunch of people or having a bunch of friends and like having a bunch of hobbies. Like, you end up not being as extreme or polarized as maybe you came into a situation. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

I'm Irish, I'm hotheaded. Like, sometimes I come in thinking one thing, and then, you know, you hear other people's perspectives, and it tones it down, and you realize, hey, you know, I can take a step back and see that there's more sides. So that's literally what the internet and buying newspapers, et cetera, reading online offers.

Okay, well, we'll leave it there. Um, it is time to switch out this panel. My thanks to Katie Honan, to Bernadette Hogan, to Lee Merengoff, um, 3 terrific, uh, professionals. Thank you for your time. Uh, thank you for your good thoughts. And, uh, Jaci, back to you.

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