Controlling the news budget
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 148
THE WORST THING WE READ™
What Is the New York Times Trying to Tell the Public About the Race for Mayor?
ON FRIDAY, THE print edition of the New York Times carried two stories about Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani, and rent stabilization in New York City: "Zohran's Law' by Cuomo Targets Rent Stabilization" and "Does Earning $142,000 in New York Make You Rich?" The day before, the paper had run two other stories on the subject: "In Mayor's Race, Candidates Hit a Nerve: Rents," at the top of the front page, and "Rent Stabilization Is City’s Treasure, but How Does It Work?"
The occasion or excuse for the flurry of coverage was that Cuomo, the former governor who resigned in disgrace over multiple accusations of sexual harassment and who is running a campaign for mayor on an independent ballot line after badly losing the Democratic mayoral primary this summer, had tried out a new line of attack: criticizing Mamdani, the Democratic primary winner, for living in a rent-stabilized apartment in Queens. Cuomo declared that Mamdani, by occupying a $2,300 apartment while earning a $142,000 salary as a member of the State Assembly, was preventing some deserving poor person from getting much-needed housing. To show that he was trying to show that he was serious, Cuomo proposed a law meant to block people with similar professional-class salaries from getting rent-stabilized apartments in the future.
Cuomo presumably meant to work from the Roger Ailes playbook, attacking his opponent on his strongest point, like the George W. Bush campaign attacking John Kerry's war record. Mamdani spent the primary campaign relentlessly talking about affordability for all, including a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments, while Cuomo countered with vague warnings that New York was in a dire crisis, in which voters had an obligation to get behind the politician with the most name recognition. That latter pitch didn't seem to work on anyone but the richest and most dull-witted campaign donors, and also the New York Times editorial board—and, it became clear after the primary was over, the people directing the Times newsroom.
