НЬЮ-ЙОРК, 22 сентября 2026 года — Новый материал Center for Community Media при Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY поднимает вопрос, который выходит далеко за рамки обычной дискуссии о местной журналистике: где проходит граница между независимым СМИ, общественной организацией и политическим активизмом?

В публикации CCM “Mainstage Excellence: How Community Newsrooms Turn Public Trust Into Sustainable Power” описываются модели работы небольших community newsrooms, которые получают признание, институциональную поддержку и, в ряде случаев, грантовое финансирование. При этом успех таких редакций оценивается не только количеством читателей, но и тем, удалось ли им добиться конкретных общественных изменений.

Именно здесь возникает принципиальный вопрос: остаётся ли редакция только наблюдателем и источником информации — или становится участником общественной кампании?

Деньги на местные СМИ растут

Материал CUNY прямо связывает развитие community media с институциональной филантропией. В нём говорится, что почти 70% участников сети Press Forward увеличили финансовую поддержку местной журналистики после присоединения к инициативе.

Сама Press Forward сообщает на странице своей сети Locals, что почти 70% её funders увеличили финансовую поддержку local news после присоединения к инициативе. Press Forward также описывает региональные структуры как объединения, которые финансируют СМИ, развивают сотрудничество и занимаются advocacy в поддержку local news. (Press Forward)

В отдельном отчёте Press Forward сообщала, что её сеть мобилизовала более $400 миллионов для поддержки local news и что гранты через сеть получили сотни редакций. Press Forward: Two Years In — $400M Mobilized for Local News (Press Forward)

Это не означает автоматически, что доноры определяют редакционную линию получателей. Но такая финансовая инфраструктура делает вопросы независимости, прозрачности грантов и возможных конфликтов интересов особенно важными.

От журналистики к «community power»

Сам CUNY Center for Community Media в стратегическом плане на 2026–2028 годы описывает работу через три направления: Analyze, Amplify и Activate.

В разделе Activate центр говорит о соединении исторически изолированных редакций и авторов с ресурсами, технологиями и policy opportunities. CUNY также прямо говорит о переходе от поддержки отдельных редакций к укреплению community-media sector в целом и развитию collective power. (Newmark J-School)

Это более широкая модель, чем традиционное понимание журналистики исключительно как сбора, проверки и публикации информации.

В исследуемом материале CCM ещё яснее говорится, что редакции могут измерять результат не только трафиком, но и “tangible public change” — конкретными общественными изменениями.

Самый показательный пример — Kansas City Defender

Особенно заметна эта граница в истории Kansas City Defender. CUNY описывает Defender как редакцию, работающую по так называемой dual-power model, вдохновлённой Black Panther Party, и совмещающую деятельность редакции с программами бесплатной еды, раздачей одежды и политическим образованием.

Но ещё важнее кейс с предполагаемым объектом ICE. В материале CUNY Center for Community Media говорится, что после публикаций вокруг предполагаемого центра содержания ICE последовали общественная мобилизация и протесты, а затем Port KC прекратил переговоры с Platform Ventures по продаже дополнительного участка в районе 49 Crossing. Официальная повестка заседания Port KC от 9 февраля 2026 года действительно содержит резолюцию о прекращении этих переговоров.
Сам проект Platform Ventures находился в 49 Crossing, на территории бывшей авиабазы Richards-Gebaur, где компания уже развивала крупные промышленные объекты. Kansas City Defender связывал эту сделку с возможным строительством центра содержания задержанных ICE и описывал последующий отказ от неё как результат массовых протестов и общественной мобилизации.

Сама Kansas City Defender описывала происходящее гораздо прямее. В феврале 2026 года издание опубликовало материал: “Platform Ventures Backs Down From ICE Detention Center Sale After Weeks of Mass Organizing and Protest”

В публикации Defender связывает отказ от сделки с неделями массовых протестов, student walkouts, закрытием предприятий и организованным общественным давлением. Материал представляет произошедшее как победу движения против проекта и призывает продолжать борьбу. (The Kansas City Defender)

Это уже значительно отличается от нейтрального языка классического новостного репортажа. Здесь журналистика и advocacy явно пересекаются.

Является ли это «антиправительственной деятельностью»?

Юридически — не обязательно.

Американские некоммерческие организации могут критиковать государственные органы, федеральные агентства и административную политику. Основное жёсткое ограничение для организаций со статусом 501(c)(3) касается участия в избирательных кампаниях. IRS прямо указывает, что 501(c)(3) организации запрещено прямо или косвенно участвовать в политической кампании за или против кандидата на выборную государственную должность. (IRS)

При этом IRS отдельно различает lobbying и political campaign activity. Lobbying связан прежде всего с поддержкой или противодействием законодательству, тогда как political campaign activity относится к поддержке или противодействию кандидату. IRS: Understanding Key Topics for Exempt Organizations (IRS)

Поэтому выступление против конкретного detention facility или критика ICE сами по себе не означают нарушения налогового статуса НПО.

Где начинается проблема для 501(c)(3)

Жёсткое ограничение существует в другом месте. 501(c)(3) организация не имеет права прямо или косвенно участвовать в избирательной кампании за или против конкретного кандидата.

IRS называет этот запрет абсолютным. (IRS) При этом непартийная voter education, общественные форумы, voter registration и некоторые другие формы гражданской активности могут быть разрешены, если они действительно проводятся на непартийной основе. IRS FAQ on Political Campaign Intervention (IRS)

Таким образом, критика ICE, федеральной администрации или конкретной государственной программы может быть допустимой advocacy. Но если деятельность превращается в поддержку или противодействие конкретному кандидату, возникает уже другой юридический вопрос.

Главный вопрос — не законность, а независимость редакции

Поэтому наиболее точный вопрос здесь не в том, «может ли НПО выступать против ICE».

Может.

Гораздо интереснее другое: может ли СМИ одновременно позиционировать себя как независимую редакцию, получать институциональное или грантовое финансирование, участвовать в общественной мобилизации и затем использовать политический или административный результат этой мобилизации как показатель собственной журналистской эффективности?

Материал CUNY показывает, что в рассматриваемой модели такие результаты действительно воспринимаются как пример успешной community journalism. Авторы противопоставляют простой web traffic более глубокому civic impact и приводят изменение решений органов власти, организацию граждан, юридическую помощь и другие общественные результаты как показатели эффективности.

Это не доказательство управления редакциями со стороны доноров

При этом опубликованные материалы не доказывают, что Press Forward, CUNY или другие funders давали конкретным редакциям указания выступать против ICE или против какой-либо администрации.

Такого доказательства в рассмотренных источниках нет.

Также нельзя автоматически утверждать, что грантовое финансирование означает политическую зависимость редакции.

Но источники позволяют документально установить более узкую связь:

институциональные funders финансируют и укрепляют community media; отраслевые организации продвигают community engagement и civic impact; а некоторые получающие признание редакции открыто сочетают журналистику с advocacy и общественной мобилизацией.

Press Forward, например, прямо описывает advocacy как одно из направлений деятельности своих региональных структур. (Press Forward)

Это уже делает вопрос о прозрачности финансирования и редакционной независимости значимым.

Какие сведения должны раскрывать такие СМИ

Для читателя особенно важны четыре вещи:

• кто финансирует редакцию;
• какую долю бюджета составляют гранты;
• существуют ли условия или тематические приоритеты грантов;
• где сама редакция проводит границу между reporting, advocacy и organizing.

Если редакция участвует в кампании против конкретного государственного решения, читатель должен понимать, выступает ли она только как журналистское СМИ или одновременно выполняет advocacy-функцию.

Что показывает материал CUNY

Публикация CCM сама по себе не доказывает существование централизованной политической кампании против федерального правительства.

Но она показывает заметное изменение философии части американской некоммерческой журналистики.

Редакция в этой модели рассматривается уже не только как источник информации.

Она должна слушать сообщество, создавать постоянные каналы взаимодействия, выстраивать civic infrastructure, оценивать реальные общественные результаты и демонстрировать эти результаты партнёрам и funders.

CUNY описывает community engagement как постоянную операционную функцию редакции, а не временную кампанию.

Именно поэтому вопрос о границе между journalism и activism становится всё более существенным.

Источники

CUNY Center for Community Media

Center for Community Media — официальный сайт

CUNY Center for Community Media — 2026–2028 Strategic Plan

Исходный материал: Mainstage Excellence: How Community Newsrooms Turn Public Trust Into Sustainable Power, Sept. 22, 2026.

Press Forward

Press Forward — Locals: Trust Begins Close to Home

Press Forward — Two Years In: $400M Mobilized for Local News

Press Forward — Local Efforts, Real Momentum

Kansas City Defender

Platform Ventures Backs Down From ICE Detention Center Sale After Weeks of Mass Organizing and Protest

Internal Revenue Service

IRS — Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Organizations

IRS — Frequently Asked Questions About the Ban on Political Campaign Intervention

IRS — Understanding Key Topics: Lobbying and Political Activity

НОВОСТИ НЬЮ-ЙОРКА: МАНХЭТТЕН, БРУКЛИН, КВИНС, СТАТЕН-АЙЛЕНД, БРОНКС, НЬЮ-ДЖЕРСИ. Проверенные на официальных ресурсах новости США на русскоя языке

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The messages were set to disappear, but the questions surrounding them have not.

Less than three weeks after City Hall acknowledged that disappearing messages had been enabled in a Signal group used to communicate with social media influencers, City Council members pressed the Mamdani administration on Tuesday over whether government records should have been preserved from the chat.

But the communications officials with firsthand knowledge of how the group operated did not testify.

Instead, the administration sent its records commissioner and the head of the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement to the Sept. 22 oversight hearing. Manhattan Council Member Gale Brewer, who chairs the Governmental Operations Committee, said communications officials had been invited to testify, but declined. 

Their absence left lawmakers trying to determine whether substantive city records may have disappeared before they could be preserved and whether the city’s existing recordkeeping rules are equipped to answer that question.

The scrutiny centers on “NYC Creators Announcements,” an invite-only Signal group used by City Hall to share information with more than 200 online creators. Reporting on the group found that members receive updates, talking points and video clips from the administration, along with invitations to events and opportunities to interview officials.

After questions emerged earlier this month about disappearing messages in the group, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chief counsel said the administration had taken “corrective action,” including reminding staff to disable the feature. City Hall has not said that government records were actually lost.

Under a May 2025 policy issued by the Department of Records and Information Services, instant messages created during city business are government records but are considered “transitory by default,” meaning there is generally no expectation they will be retained.

The exception is a message that documents or relates to a city office or agency’s decisions, actions, or policies. Those are considered substantive and must be transferred somewhere they can be preserved.

The policy puts the initial responsibility for making that distinction on the employee.

Asked by Brewer how workers are supposed to know when a message crosses that line, Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) Commissioner Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz pointed to training and agency guidance.

“It’s really up to the user,” Smith-Cruz said. 

Brewer replied that the policy “needs some help.”

Smith-Cruz later told lawmakers that deleting an instant message is “not, in and of itself, a violation” of DORIS policy, while substantive messages still “must be retained” elsewhere. She also said DORIS does not monitor employees’ active messaging channels and has not reviewed the influencer Signal group to determine whether substantive records disappeared before they could be preserved. 

Bronx Council Member Eric Dinowitz tried to apply the rule directly to the material reportedly sent through the group, asking whether daily updates, talking points and clips should be considered substantive communications.

Smith-Cruz said that if a message simply directs someone to an underlying document already preserved elsewhere, such as a press release, the message itself could be transitory.

“Can you say that in English, please?” Dinowitz jokingly responded. 

Dinowitz said the material appeared to fit DORIS’ definition of substantive communications. Smith-Cruz did not make that determination and reiterated that agencies are responsible for ensuring employees properly identify messages that need to be preserved.

The witnesses also could not answer basic questions about the influencer operation itself.

When Staten Island Council Minority Leader David Carr asked how many influencers had worked with the Mayor’s Office or city agencies this year, neither Smith-Cruz nor Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement Commissioner Tascha Van Auken knew. Van Auken repeatedly referred questions about the program to City Hall’s communications team.

“We’re having a hearing about this very topic, and two agency heads were sent here who don’t have the answer to that question,” Carr said. 

Council wonders where are ‘the right people’ to answer Signal questions?

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, an ally of the mayor, said he has “great respect” for the administration but also criticized the missing witnesses.

“The right people should be here so that we can ask questions and people can hear the answers,” Williams said. 

Queens Council Member Phil Wong later asked specifically about Emilia Rowland, City Hall’s director of new media and cultural communications, who has been identified as overseeing the influencer outreach. Van Auken said she did not know where Rowland was

Smith-Cruz also said the city currently has no technological way to archive Signal through its archival system and does not expect Signal messages themselves to be archived. 

City Hall has previously said Signal can be authorized for specific uses if safeguards are followed, including disabling disappearing messages.

Council Member Frank Morano later urged the Council to consider using its subpoena power to compel testimony from officials who could answer the remaining questions. Brewer said lawmakers were “not getting the answers that this hearing was outlined for.” 

At a separate City Hall news conference while the hearing was underway, Mamdani defended his administration’s response.

“Our administration took corrective action to ensure that we’re in accordance with the city’s record-keeping laws, and I’m confident in the testimony that our administration is providing today that it will be sufficient in answering the council’s questions,” Mamdani said. 

Asked later about the apparent discrepancy between the chief counsel memo and City Hall’s position that Signal could be authorized for some uses, Mamdani said there are “trainings and there are retrainings” and referred the specifics to his chief counsel. 

The dispute follows another recent fight over Council access to administration officials. In August, City Hall declined to send Department of Finance officials to a Brewer-led hearing on the pied-à-terre surcharge rollout, citing pending litigation.

Proposed fixes draw criticism

Tuesday’s hearing also took up four bills aimed at government and campaign communications involving outside parties, but watchdogs and the Campaign Finance Board warned that several need significant changes.

One proposal from Carr would require reporting when public servants use or authorize government funds or resources for third-party public communications. Another Carr bill would bar candidates from appearing in certain government-funded third-party communications during the 90 days before an election.

A bill from Council Member Oswald Feliz would require certain third-party communications paid for with government resources to disclose their connection to the city, while Wong’s proposal would require “paid for by” disclosures on certain online campaign and independent-expenditure content.

The CFB said Wong’s proposal largely duplicates campaign advertising disclosure requirements already in place, including rules covering paid influencer content.

The board also raised concerns about the Feliz bill, which would give the CFB and Conflicts of Interest Board enforcement authority. CFB officials said policing other city agencies does not fit the campaign finance board’s current role.

CFB First Deputy Executive Director Amanda Melillo also drew a distinction between campaign activity and what City Hall does after an election.

“We do not regulate the mayor’s activities or the activities of any City Hall staffer in carrying out their public duties,” Melillo said.

Citizens Union supported requiring disclosure when the city actually pays for influencer content but warned that the Feliz bill’s definition is broad enough that it could reach ordinary news coverage arranged using a city email account or phone. The group recommended tying the requirement to actual city funding rather than the broader “use of government resources.”

On the records issue, good-government groups pushed for stronger rules than those currently in place.

Rachael Fauss, senior policy adviser at Reinvent Albany, argued that DORIS’ policy starts from the wrong premise by treating instant messages as transitory by default. She urged the Council to distinguish instead between substantive and non-substantive messages and require public records created through electronic communications to be archived and retrievable.

“In reality we know that those messages are records; they contain information that should be retained,” Fauss testified. 

Citizens Union Executive Director Grace Rauh called for an explicit ban on automatic deletion for official city business.

“Automatic delete functions should be explicitly prohibited from any official city business,” Rauh said. 

At the same time, witnesses cautioned against treating City Hall’s outreach to unpaid creators as improper on its face.

Columbia University researcher Anya Schiffrin, whose work helped bring scrutiny to the Signal group, testified that Rowland told her in a text message that information shared through the Signal group “is not different at all from the information given to the regular press list” and generally consists of links to press releases and City Hall livestreams. 

Tony Rahsaan of TBO Harlem Uptown, who said he belongs to the group, similarly described much of what he receives as “just press stuff.” He said he has never been paid and chooses for himself what to cover.

Those accounts, however, did not answer the records question that drove much of Tuesday’s hearing. DORIS has not reviewed the Signal group to determine whether substantive government records disappeared before they could be preserved, while the communications officials with direct knowledge of how the group operated did not testify.

City Hall did not immediately respond to questions about Rowland’s absence or whether another part of the administration has reviewed the Signal group for deleted substantive records.

An immersive art installation will plunge the Brooklyn Bridge deep below the surface of the sea and into a critical marine ecosystem on Sept. 25 and 26. 

Artist Anita Glesta’s piece “AQUA COSMOS: The Hudson Canyon,” an 18-minute “hybrid documentary” projection, will bathe the bridge with the sights and sounds of the canyon, as captured by artists and scientists over the last century. 

“I’ve spent much of my life exploring what lies beneath the surface — of memory, of the body, of the landscapes we live in,” Glesta said in a statement. “When I learned that an extraordinary marine ecosystem exists just beyond New York City, it felt like another one of those revelations.”

Just 100 miles southeast of the city, the underwater canyon is longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon and teeming with life, from blue whales and sea turtles to tuna, crabs and deep-sea coral. 

But not many people know about the Hudson Canyon. Glesta, who has been an environmental activist and artist for years, learned about it during a presentation by WCS’ Noah Chesnin. 

“He actually asked the audience, ‘How many people here have ever heard about the Hudson Canyon?’” she recalled. “It was in New York City, and nobody raised their hand.”

Glesta was “blown away” to learn about the canyon and the diverse wildlife that call it home, and asked to meet up with Chesnin to learn more about it. That was when he told her about the Arcturus expedition, a 1925 research expedition led by William Beebe and supported by the New York Zoological Society, which would later become WCS.

It was the first time Hudson Canyon was explored, and the crew included six women, scientists and artists. At the time, there were no cameras that could capture underwater species — they had to be drawn and painted. 

“The women on board were the artists who were, I like to say, translators of the science,” Glesta said. “They were the ones whose role it was to depict accurately the … marine life that they discovered. They had this really important role in this, and I felt like that’s another layer of meaning that is so extraordinary about this story.” 

She knew immediately she wanted to create a piece about the canyon and its history. Now, in partnership with WCS and ArtW, Glesta will bring the canyon to Brooklyn Bridge Park. “AQUA COSMOS: The Hudson Canyon” uses multiple projectors to fill the pedestal of the Brooklyn Bridge and the plaza below life.

The piece uses video footage captured by WCS during a trip to the canyon last year with the “beautiful drawings” from the Arcturus expedition and Glesta’s own hand-drawn animations. 

Glesta said she thought viewers would be “mesmerized” by the piece, which will play on a loop at Emily Warren Roebling Plaza from 7-10 p.m. on Sept. 25 and 26. 

“I’d like to say that seeing something helps you understand what you actually otherwise can’t see, which is this canyon,” she said. “By seeing it, and understanding it, I think people will feel more likely to want to preserve what is so precious about it.” 

The canyon is critical for local wildlife and economies, and WCS has been trying to get it designated as a National Marine Sanctuary since 2016. A designation would support conservation of the canyon and its inhabitants and expand monitoring of the sensitive ecosystem, per WCS, while expanding opportunities for education and engagement. 

Glesta, who hopes to expand the piece and continue to show it around the city in the future, said it’s “wonderful” to know that New York City sits so close to an “Atlantis-like world.” More and more often, marine life is straying into the New York Harbor, she noted. 

“And we need to be very mindful of their behavior and respectful that they’re there, and we are coexisting with this marine life, even though we can’t see them,” she said. “It’s an extraordinary, extraordinary gift that we are having to coexist with them.” 

In the MTA’s contract negotiations with the union representing nearly 40,000 New York City Transit workers — Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 — the authority is pushing to ensure that some workers show up to the job more often while also increasing all health care contributions, agency Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said on Tuesday.

The MTA is pursuing both changes possibly in exchange for the wage increases that Local 100 is seeking, Lieber said during a Sept. 22 Citizens Budget Commission breakfast event in Midtown Manhattan. He said bargaining a new contract presents the only opportunity for the MTA to eliminate what he called “kooky” work rules that Local 100 secured in the past and make other adjustments it finds necessary.

“What we always come to the table with is, in order to justify the wage increases, we ask for work rule and other improvements,” Lieber said. “One of the challenges is … [under] our collective bargaining system, for better or worse, once a work rule is in the book, as they say, you can’t get it out except by agreement, no matter how kooky it is. And that is a challenge.”

One of the work rule changes that the MTA wants stems from what Lieber said is workers’ ability to take unpaid sick days after three days of work, while still being eligible for overtime pay to make up the lost wages.

The transit boss contended that the system has given rise to an “availability” issue, in which roughly 1,400 NYC Transit workers are on the job less than half the days they are supposed to work. He said that group of employees is working 160 days or less out of the 260 workdays in a year.

“One of the things that we’re pursuing in these negotiations is a range of different things to increase availability,” Lieber said. “Without getting into every detail, we’ve got to make sure that when you hire people, that they’re showing up. So you don’t need to hire more and more people and have more and more overtime.”

Lieber, however, did not go into specifics about how the MTA is trying to address the issue he identified in the negotiations.

Increasing workers’ contributions for health insurance payments is another of the MTA’s priorities in bargaining, Lieber said. The change is aimed at rebalancing MTA employees’ share of health care cost payments, he said — with workers now paying 5% of the sum, versus the 11% they shelled out after the 2005 labor deal two decades ago.

“We need to address the healthcare imbalance between management and labor,” Lieber said. “Healthcare and availability are the two issues that we’re really pushing in these negotiations. We’d like to get a deal done, but those are important.”

Transit union’s response? Look elsewhere to cut costs

In response to Lieber’s remarks, Local 100 President John Chiarello contended the MTA is flush with cash and should look elsewhere than his members for cutting costs.

“There is an unprecedented amount of money flowing into the MTA’s budget and the state budget from casino licenses and congestion pricing, and the agency is facing fewer financial obligations because of the pension payment restructuring,” Chiarello said in a statement to amNewYork.

“We took these jobs for the healthcare and benefits,” he added. “Why is it that Janno’s looking to us for the money? Why is he looking to squeeze the hardworking men and women of transit? Squeeze the contractors and hordes of consultants that Janno puts so much faith in to do nothing. They don’t move New York. Our members do. But we’re not going to bargain a contract in the press. Bargaining will continue at the table.”

The chair’s comments come over four months after TWU Local 100’s most recent contract with the MTA expired in mid-May. 

During that time, Local 100 leaders have publicly bashed the MTA’s offers around wage increases, benefits, and work-rule changes. In early July, Chiarello decried the agency’s pitch of 2% pay raises and that transit workers make higher health care contributions, among other proposed tweaks, as “unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, at the time, MTA spokesperson Tim Minton maintained that negotiations had been “routine” and productive.

It also remains unclear how a labor deal struck between the MTA and five Long Island Rail Road unions, representing roughly half of the system’s workforce, to end the group’s three-day work stoppage earlier this year, is affecting the former’s negotiations with Local 100. 

As of now, there has been no indication of a strike threat from TWU Local 100. Under the state’s Taylor Law, the union’s MTA workers are prohibited from walking off the job, though that has not thwarted past job actions; the last transit strike took place over two days in December 2005, and resulted in a $1 million fine for the union.