What I Learned About the Press and Democracy from the Last NYC Mayoral Race— and What to Watch for This Election Year

What I Learned About the Press and Democracy from the Last NYC Mayoral Race—

and What to Watch for This Election Year

by Raja Flores

If you voted in New York City’s 2021 mayoral race, you probably never heard my name, even though it was printed right there on your ballot along with Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa. When I arrived at my assigned polling station at the East 25th Street in Hunter College, the gym was lined with voting booths at one end and electronic ballot scanners at the other. I approached the poll worker at the folding tables to request my ballot and asked, “Does my name look familiar?”

She glanced down, then looked up, puzzled.
“No... should it?”

The question caught me off guard. I had assumed a poll worker, of all people, would be more civic minded than the average voter, and would have researched the names running for the most consequential office on the ballot.

I pointed to the line of mayoral candidates and said, “That’s me right there.”
She blinked. Stared at me. Tilted her head slightly. Then profusely apologized.

That moment said it all. I wasn’t just running against the other candidates on the ballot. I was running against a political machine designed to ensure most voters would never know my name, let alone hear my message.

I’m not a career politician. I’m a thoracic surgeon who’s spent decades treating diseases that thrive in New York’s neglected public housing—lung cancer from asbestos and second-hand smoke, fungal infections from mold, preventable conditions born of political neglect. I ran for mayor because I was tired of watching patients suffer and die from problems the city refuses to fix.

The Hippocratic Oath states: “I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.”

That line haunted me every time I walked into a NYCHA apartment filled with black mold or met a patient whose lung cancer was caused by asbestos in a building the city had long ignored. Prevention was impossible after decades of neglect by multiple administrations, including de Blasio, Bloomberg and Giuliani. All branches of government share the blame for NYCHA, which is funded by federal, state and city dollars.

More than half a million New Yorkers live in NYCHA housing. In 2018, a state study ordered by Governor Andrew Cuomo found that four out of five apartments had a severe health hazard. The following year, despite the findings, Cuomo allocated zero dollars for new capital repairs.

So I did what surgeons are trained to do: I acted. Frustrated by the inaction, I ran for mayor to force these issues into public view. I knew the odds. I knew independents don’t win in New York City. But I wasn’t running to win, I was running to be heard.

Like this year’s, the 2021 mayoral race wasn’t just a contest between candidates. It was a case study in how New York City’s political system claims to celebrate democracy while quietly suffocating it. The press played a central role, not by attacking outsiders but by pretending they didn’t exist. Credible candidates were ignored, locked out of debates by obscure rules, and dismissed for lacking the very party ties and donor networks the system was supposedly designed to challenge. The result was a democracy that looked functional on the surface but corroding underneath. My story traces how it happened in 2021, how it is happening again in 2025, and how we fix a system that has been structured to serve itself while insisting it’s serving “We the People.”

GETTING STARTED

So I made the decision to run. But first, I called Manny Gomez, my childhood friend and the most grounded person I knew. He had been a Marine, an NYPD sergeant, and an FBI agent. Somehow, he also managed to put himself through Fordham Law School at night while working full-time. Later, he built one of New York’s premier private security firms, MG Security Services, which grew to over 1,200 employees before he sold it to private equity for a small fortune. Manny dealt in reality.

He listened carefully, asked all the right questions, then told me I wasn’t crazy. And just like that, he was in. He even said that if my million-to-one shot somehow landed, he’d be my deputy mayor. I featured him proudly on our website as our law enforcement lead.

Ok what do I do now?

As I was mulling over the “how” in between surgical cases the following week, I stopped by the hospital cafeteria for a quick bite. That’s where I ran into one of my mentees, an exceptionally bright medical student named Ted Obi. He told me he was planning to take a year off to get his MBA from Harvard before finishing medical school. As we talked, I casually mentioned that I was thinking about running for mayor of New York City. I expected a “Wait are you serious?” kind of reaction. Instead, he lit up and said it sounded great, and that he’d love to be involved however he could.

The next day at work, I got a call from another sharp student, Isaac Faith, Ted’s close friend. “Dr. Flores, Ted told me you’re running for mayor. We need to make a website and get ready to launch. We have a lot of other students who want to be involved.” I was surprised. Ted was the only person I had mentioned this to at work. But I have to admit, I loved the enthusiasm.

I needed advice from professionals, people who had done this before, but I didn’t know anyone. So I called a family friend, Katherine Gehl, author of The Politics Industry, a 2020 book on the inner workings of the electoral system and how to fix its partisan gridlock. Her perspective gave me insight into the political forces at play. She also connected me with a Fox News contributor and well-known political consultant.

The consultant immediately challenged my decision to run. “It’s a corrupt business,” he warned. He even quoted a famous boxer-turned-mayor of Kyiv, saying politics is “a thousand times more corrupt than boxing.” But despite his skepticism, he said he’d help me get started and do it “free of charge.”

He connected me to another consultant, and we met in Manny’s office. Barely a minute in, he said we’d need to provide $30,000 upfront for what he described as preliminary opposition research.

Opposition research? Who was going to oppose me? No one even knew I was running. I’m a lifelong surgeon with a pretty uneventful track record, at least by political standards. We hadn’t even taken our first step, and someone already wanted thirty grand just to Google my name.

Manny leaned over with the shrug of a guy who’d seen it all. “These guys are professional parasites,” he said. And coming from a former cop, that wasn’t a guess. It was an indictment.

That’s when it hit me: this entire system runs on a steady stream of candidates fueling a sprawling ecosystem of consultants, vendors, and middlemen. The more layers of bureaucracy, the more money to be made. It’s not a campaign—it’s an industry. A parasitic one. And the election laws don’t just allow it. They enable it. Before we’d even begun, I could already see how deep it went.

So I thought, the hell with this. I’d just go by the book. As long as I followed the rules, which I assumed were fair and impartial, I figured I was smart enough to figure it out. I Googled ‘how to run for mayor,’ landed on the Campaign Finance Board website, and decided to follow their checklist like a first-year med student terrified of missing something in anatomy lab.

THE MONEY WATCHDOG

Reporters get their early scoop on who’s running for mayor by checking the Campaign Finance Board website, which lists everyone who has filed to run and outlines the supposed steps to qualify. In both 2021 and 2025, more than 60 New Yorkers filed. But the system is not designed to support them; it is designed to screen them out.

The official guidance is vague, incomplete and often misleading. Miss a single form, misread a deadline, or overlook a rule buried three links deep, and you’re finished. You won’t make the ballot. Most of the names that appear on the CFB’s list at the start quietly vanish by election day.

One could argue this is a good filter for who should be mayor. But career politicians arrive with campaign staff and party infrastructure to handle the busywork. Outsiders don’t.

I went into the race believing the CFB, created in 1988, was there to level the playing field. It was supposed to limit the influence of big money and give candidates like me a fair shot. I thought if I followed the rules, raised small-dollar donations, and engaged voters, the system would support me and the press would cover me. That was the promise of the public matching funds program, to boost grassroots campaigns and make elections more democratic.

If anything illustrates the outsized role of money in American elections, it is the way billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman responded to Zohran Mamdani’s win in the 2025 Democratic primary. He went on a Twitter tirade, where he attacked Mamdani’s positions on Israel, socialism, and policing. But his influence does not end with angry posts. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, Ackman now has the legal tools to form super PACs, flood the airwaves with attack ads, and bury opposing voices under a mountain of paid misinformation.

He has publicly pledged to spend hundreds of millions to stop Mamdani from winning the general election. He does not have to run for office to shape the outcome. He and his billionaire allies can control the narrative, steer public opinion, and tilt the playing field without ever appearing on a ballot. This is not a hypothetical. It is the predictable result of a political system that allows extreme wealth to overpower democratic choice.

And the press often plays along, sometimes by design, more often by default. Billionaires can dominate headlines with a single tweet or ad buy, while lesser-known candidates struggle to be acknowledged at all. Reporters cover who is deemed “viable,” which increasingly means those with donors, consultants and airtime behind them. That circular logic ensures voices outside the political establishment rarely break through.

If a hedge fund mogul can buy the narrative and the media simply echoes what he funds or fuels, the public never hears the full story. Although Mamdani broke through and won—a case we’ll return to later—such examples remain the exception. Democracy requires a free press. It also requires a press willing to look beyond money and power.

The influence of money in politics does not stop at campaign ads or super PACs. It seeps into the institutions of governance, shaping decisions, currying favor, and eroding public trust. In New York City, that influence came into sharp focus when federal prosecutors began investigating Mayor Eric Adams for allegedly accepting illegal perks from Turkish officials. As Brooklyn borough president and then as a mayoral candidate, Adams is accused of pressuring the FDNY to expedite approval of the new Turkish consulate despite safety concerns. A Turkish-American businessman has already pleaded guilty to funneling illegal donations through a straw-donor scheme. Yet Adams is back on the ballot in 2025.

The CFB has no authority over any of that. What I encountered from this so-called watchdog was a bureaucratic labyrinth that rewarded insiders with consultants, compliance teams, and party donor networks. While establishment candidates collected large donations and received even larger public matches, campaigns like mine were buried under paperwork and technicalities. The watchdog was not guarding the public. It was protecting the people who already had money. And the press, as always, followed the money.

The CFB website lists a simple step by step process to register, obtain an EIN (employer identification number), open a bank account, and register with the campaign-finance board by filling out an application.

Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong.

We first got an EIN number, which was the easy part. Then came the bank account. I tried Chase, Citibank and a handful of others, but every time the clerks ran into the same problem: the system wouldn’t let them open a political account. Even they didn’t realize it until a supervisor dug deeper. Many banks simply don’t handle political accounts, but at the time there was no way to know which ones did. The internet was no help, and when we complained to the Campaign Finance Board, the guidance was just as thin.

Four years later, a quick Google search seems to pull up the answers that once felt impossible to find. But back then the deadline was bearing down, and I still didn’t have a campaign account.

Then feeling as if I was stuck in a dead end I called a Sal Albanese for advice. I needed someone who had been there before, someone who understood the terrain. I had never met Sal, a teacher and lawyer, and a 15year city council member from Brooklyn, but I remembered liking him and thinking him trustworthy from watching his run for mayor. So I called him out of the blue. He responded right away but with the caution of a native New Yorker.

He directed me to TD Bank, where I finally managed to open an account. It sounds simple on paper, but in practice it was another gauntlet—forms, signatures, requirements that seemed to shift each time I thought I’d met them. One more reminder that nothing about running outside the system is straightforward. What the establishment takes for granted is a slow grind for everyone else.

The CFB’s website says, “Once you have completed the steps above, you are ready to begin fundraising and campaigning.” But not so fast. The next section adds: 1. Mandatory attendance at a CFB training 2. Contact your candidate services liaison 3. Set up a “Contribute” account

It all sounded straightforward enough. But getting started was anything but simple.

Once we enrolled in the matching funds program, we were assigned a liaison named Honda Wang. From that point on, everything was handled over email. No phone calls, no in-person meetings. Just a steady drip of digital instructions.

The platform we were required to use—C-SMART—was billed as a modern compliance tool. But to us, it felt more like a booby trap. My treasurer, a seasoned CPA, was constantly frustrated by its complexity and unforgiving filing rules. Every single donation required a scanned check, a receipt, and often a handwritten note. Never ending deadlines. One small mistake could stall the entire campaign or trigger an audit.

It was marketed as transparency. But for grassroots candidates, it felt more like a system designed to catch you slipping.

Running for mayor meant navigating three overlapping sets of rules: the New York City Charter, New York State Election Law, and CFB regulations. The Charter lays out the government structure but offers little help to candidates. State law governs ballot access—signatures, deadlines, formatting. The CFB controls fundraising, spending, and public funding. Together, they create a maze that is almost impossible to navigate without legal help.

Both the Board of Elections and the CFB provide summaries and online guides, but they gloss over the details that matter most. The BOE rarely warns about the most common disqualifying mistakes. The CFB focuses on finance, not ballot access. The system is not designed for first-timers. It is designed for those who have done it before, or those who can pay people who have. That is why veteran campaigns hire election lawyers before they even gather a single signature. As an outsider with no consultants or legal team, I quickly learned that trusting the official guidance was a mistake.

Most New Yorkers assume one agency runs our elections. In reality, two separate boards control the process—and understanding that split can make or break a campaign. The BOE handles voter registration, polling sites, vote counting, and most importantly, determines who qualifies for the ballot. It is a political body, with commissioners appointed by party leaders in each borough. It is the first gatekeeper. The CFB, by contrast, was created as a reform agency. It enforces contribution limits, spending caps, and disclosure rules. It runs the public matching funds program and claims to help grassroots candidates compete. The staff is professional and well-intentioned. But even this reform agency, I learned, can end up reinforcing the political machine it was meant to disrupt.

One board decides whether you can run. The other decides whether you can afford to keep going. Together, they determine who gets heard and who gets erased—long before citizens cast a vote.

CREATING A TEAM

I knew I couldn’t run a campaign with just my medical students, even though they were the perfect combination of intelligence and work ethic. I needed to build a real team. I needed a lawyer. I needed a treasurer, preferably someone with an accounting background. And I needed a website. The part I dreaded most was asking people for money, which, unfortunately, is a major requirement when you’re running for public office.

I needed to find a campaign lawyer. All the lawyers I called were already representing candidates in the Democratic primary, so I kept looking. While scouring the internet, I came across a labor lawyer named Richard Washington. He struck me as capable and open-minded, but more than that, he looked like someone I could trust. When we spoke by phone, he didn’t pretend to be an expert. “This isn’t something I do every day,” he said, “and I’d have to consult with people who know the process.” His honesty was exactly what I needed.

When I met him in person, he was in his office with his teenage daughter, a polite, well-spoken college student. On the wall was a poster of Vine Street from his hometown in Missouri, near the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. We talked about Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. While we spoke, you could tell how much his daughter admired him. That was all I needed to see. Richard was my guy. He became the key to helping us make the ballot without getting tripped up by the vague, technical traps buried in election law. He also helped me navigate an issue with my employer. When I informed them I was running, they wanted me to temporarily step down as department chair. Richard calmly pointed to Civil Service Law § 107, which prohibits employers from altering your job title or responsibilities because of political aspirations, so long as they do not interfere with work hours. My employer gave in. I continued to operate and take care of patients as chairman the entire election season.

Richard brought in his friend Dan Simonette, a bona fide campaign lawyer. Dan carried himself with the same quiet confidence and integrity as Richard. With both of them on board, I finally felt like we had the legal side covered.

Manny had introduced me to a few accountants he had worked with over the years, but none of them worked out. I was at a loss. We needed a treasurer, someone reliable, experienced, and most of all, trustworthy. I didn’t know where to turn. Then I thought of my childhood role model and basketball coach, Mike Williamson. We had grown up in the same neighborhood. He had spent his early teen years pulling needles out of his brothers’ arms. Somehow, against the odds, he became a certified public accountant.

Mike had been a steady presence in my life since I was nine years old. My father left when I was six, and in many ways, Mike stepped into that role. He wasn’t just a coach. He was a father figure. He was tough, patient, and dependable. When I called to tell him what I was doing, he didn’t hesitate. He was immediately on board.

That call brought me back to 1979. Back then, Mike kept us in check. He had a drawer in his house filled with weapons he’d quietly confiscated from us over the years. Knives, clubs, throwing stars, even nunchucks. Danny, one of our teammates, once brought a gun to a game, though Mike never found it. Thankfully, Danny never used it.

We were a crew of scrappy neighborhood kids, riding the subways to basketball games all over the city. At every stop, we’d lean out through the open car doors, pretending to be Guardian Angels, scanning the platforms for trouble.

And now, somehow, I was running for mayor against Curtis Sliwa, the actual founder of the Guardian Angels. He blocked me on Twitter after I called him out for gaming the system, appearing on the ballot as both a Republican and an “independent.” It was more than a gimmick. It revealed just how easily political labels can be twisted to mislead voters. Today, Adams and Cuomo are pulling the same move. They claim to be independent voices while staying fully plugged into the machine, tapping its donors, consultants, and protections without facing the real obstacles that true independents confront every step of the way.

Mike was more than just a good accountant. He was a rock. In a campaign where financial compliance was everything, having someone I trusted running the money side made all the difference.

We needed an online presence, and Isaac, our tireless student volunteer, knew just the guy. He introduced me to Bradley Paul Growden as we were piecing together the campaign website. Bradley was one of those creatives who made you forget you were in a meeting. Laid-back but fully tuned in, he carried a sharp eye and a Rolodex that seemed to stretch across the city.

He ran our photo shoots like a film director, every frame storyboarded in his head, yet always ready to improvise when the moment called for it. He and Isaac spent hours fine-tuning the site, trading ideas until it felt like a place people would actually want to linger. Then came the campaign video. Shot, recorded, and produced by Bradley with such calm precision that the rest of us felt like pros just by standing in front of his camera.

In a race where so much felt staged and synthetic, everything Bradley touched came out looking real.

Then I got a random email and phone call from someone named Jared Alper at Good Party. At first, I thought it was a scam, maybe even an attempt at identity theft, so I ignored him. But he was persistent. Eventually, I looked up Good Party and found that it was started by a wealthy entrepreneur who wanted to improve politics by supporting independent candidates. Jared turned out to be incredibly talented at shaping a campaign’s image and message. The website he built for me, using Good Party’s template, was superb.

The Good Party is a nonprofit civic tech organization founded in 2019 by tech entrepreneur Farhad Mohit, whose previous ventures include BizRate, Flipagram, and Snap search. Frustrated by the grip of the two-party system on American politics, Mohit launched Good Party with a clear mission: to empower independent and nonpartisan candidates to run for office and win without relying on the corrupt machinery of the Democratic or Republican parties. Rather than functioning as a traditional political party, Good Party provides free tools, strategic guidance, and grassroots support to level the playing field for candidates who want to represent people, not party interests. At its core, the organization aims to make politics more honest, accessible, and people-powered, offering a credible alternative for voters tired of business as usual. As of 2024, Good Party has supported over 3,400 independent candidates in 48 states.

Unfortunately, at this point in the campaign I did not recognize the full potential of this platform. It was still in its infancy, and it has become a more powerful and useful tool today. I also didn’t know back then that I should have a media outreach person and someone dedicated full time to fundraising. All of this feeds the political parasites, or what Katherine Gehl calls the politics industry. By the time you are able to come up for air, you have already missed the fundraising deadline for the debate stage. That deadline is not spelled out by either the CFB or BOE. You have to dig through the NY1 website to find it. It is a race against time with hundreds of hidden deadlines designed to trip you up. But professional politicians already know every trap.

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

The website was live, with a functioning donate button. Everything was in place. Manny had secured the police presence and permits. Ted and Isaac picked up the U-Haul, loaded with the podium, banners, speakers, and chairs. Bradley finished the video. We had the music. We were ready.

Core team - Peter Cooke, Bert Schmickel, Me, Isaac Faith, and Ted Obi

In the weeks before the launch, I reached out to more than a hundred media outlets. I sent emails, made phone calls, even leaned on friends in mainstream newsrooms who connected me to their political desks. I tapped every relationship I had built in New York, large and small.

On launch day, about 150 supporters showed up. The location was symbolic: 14th Street and Ninth Avenue, a stretch now polished and gentrified but once the cobblestone street where we played stickball in the late 1970s. That day it was closed to traffic, just as it had been during the years of urban blight.

Given my professional background, I thought the press would take us seriously. I had appeared in medical stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily News, and Newsday. I had been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, NY1, Univision, and Telemundo. I had even been on The Rachel Maddow Show recently, discussing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s surgery. Surely someone would come.

No one came.

Not a single reporter showed up, even though we were just a block away from NY1 headquarters.

It wasn’t just disappointing. It was deflating. A lack of press coverage outside the two-party system is not an accident. It’s part of a larger scheme designed to protect the status quo and consolidate power within the Democratic and Republican machines. That system includes backroom dealmakers, dark-money donors, consultants, opinion-shaping pundits, self-serving lobbyists dressed up as think tanks, union bosses, and for-profit media outlets that depend on access to major-party candidates and the ad dollars that come with them.

After the event, I walked from 14th Street back to my home in Midtown. Alone. Humiliated. I kept asking myself: Was this a mistake? Had I misunderstood something basic about how democracy works? I believed that if even one journalist had come and written a few lines, it might have sparked interest. Maybe it would catch fire. But we were ignored.

It wasn’t just a lack of attention. It was a message.

Reporters would say the silence wasn’t personal, only practical. With limited staff and space, they argued that coverage had to focus on “viable” contenders, defined by fundraising totals, polling numbers and party support. By that logic, campaigns without donors, consultants or airtime simply did not warrant ink. But withholding coverage guaranteed those campaigns never gained traction. It was circular logic that wrote outsiders like me out of the story before it was ever told. I will address this in detail later.

And this was happening in the middle of COVID. The front pages were consumed with ventilators, infection rates and overrun hospitals. I wasn’t just another long-shot candidate. I was a thoracic surgeon with frontline experience, someone who had been in the operating rooms and ICUs through the chaos. I thought that would matter. I thought that would at least spark curiosity.

But there was no curiosity. No camera. No call. Nothing.

So much for equal coverage.

PETITION IMPOSSIBLE

According to Katherine Gehl, one of the most powerful tools the political duopoly uses to maintain control is the ability to write and manipulate the election laws to serve themselves. From signature requirements to filing deadlines, these laws are not just neutral procedures. They are strategic barriers designed to protect the major parties and shut out competition. The public rarely sees this side of politics, but insiders know exactly how to use it to their advantage. In New York, no one demonstrated that more effectively than Governor Andrew Cuomo.

We experienced that firsthand. To qualify for the ballot, every candidate must collect 7,500 petition signatures from New York City residents within a narrow six-week window. But major-party candidates are allowed to start six weeks earlier than independents. And once a voter signs a petition for a Democrat or Republican, they are legally barred from signing for an independent. This shrinks the pool of eligible voters and gives the two major parties first access. They get dibs, while everyone else is left scrambling with a smaller fraction of the field.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, then-Governor Cuomo, who lost in the this year’s primary to Mamdani and is now on the ballot as an “independent,” changed the laws. He lowered signature requirements to limit public exposure to the virus. Democrats and Republicans needed only 2,250 signatures. Independents had to collect 3,750. Even in a public health emergency, the system protected the parties and punished challengers. On paper, the rules looked neutral. In practice, the insiders knew exactly how to bend them and shut everyone else out. Imagine Cuomo’s outrage if Governor Hochul told him he had to collect more signatures than anyone else for his “independent” run in the 2025 mayoral race.

We did not have a political machine. We did not have the money to hire professional firms to collect signatures. What we had was a group of determined medical students who ran across the city, especially through Central Park and Prospect Park. They gave up their weekends and gathered nearly 7,000 signatures by hand, using the correct paperwork, printed on legal-size paper, not standard. They included the required cover sheets and emblem. I had pictured an emblem as a kind of visual coat of arms—a stamp every party needed. Simonette explained it was nothing so grand. “An emblem is just an abbreviation of your party,” he said. “Like H.U. for Humanity United.”

I came close to being disqualified over something as minor as leaving out my middle initial. The Board claimed the name on my filing page did not match the name on the ballot, but they never said outright that the problem was a missing initial. We had to figure it out ourselves. There were dozens of little details like that, each one draining time and energy.

For establishment campaigns, those hurdles barely registered. They had staff and paid canvassers to manage the fine print, with meals and transportation covered while they roamed the city. Money bought compliance, and compliance bought security. For us, there was none of that. All we had was grit and dedication, while the rules themselves served as insulation for the insiders.

The fact that we gathered enough petition signatures to make the general election ballot still feels like a small miracle.

THE BATTLE OF THE BALLOT

Making the Ballot

A major obstacle to getting on the ballot is the extensive web of election laws. Navigating them requires a well-funded political machine, leaving independents without an existing apparatus at a serious disadvantage. This favors major parties with insider knowledge and entrenched donors expecting a return on their investment. Even a well-resourced outsider like Republican mayoral candidate Sarah Tirschwell was removed from the 2021 primary ballot on a technicality. Smart, articulate, charming, and well-funded, she still fell short after a challenge from rival Fernando Mateo’s campaign prompted the Board of Elections to rule that too many of her petition signatures were invalid due to ineligible signers, duplicates, and incomplete information. Her disqualification became a symbol of how technicalities can shut down campaigns before they start, especially for candidates without deep political infrastructure. Tirschwell called the process opaque and punitive, arguing that voters, not paperwork, should decide who gets to run. Her experience shows how the system can quietly eliminate credible outsiders long before election day.

Whenever we called the Board of Elections about our ballot status, we could never get a straight answer. “Check the ledger” was always their response. What ledger? You had to go to the website, find a buried email address — BOELedger@boenyc.gov — and request a list of candidates along with the legal status of each campaign. Predictably, the ledger was difficult to interpret, and the BOE refused to answer follow-up questions. They were so careful to avoid even the appearance of giving preference. The ledger contained the legal reasons for failure.

It was not until mid-September, when I received a letter asking me to approve how my name would be written in Chinese on the ballot, that I finally realized I was actually going to appear on it. My team of four medical students had done their job. But by then we were in a fundraising crunch. We had already missed the debate threshold. Buried in paperwork, we never thought to check NY1’s separate requirements for inclusion, which were not spelled out by the Campaign Finance Board or the Board of Elections. While the two-party candidates surged comfortably ahead, we were still dotting i’s and crossing t’s. The system is designed to keep outsiders tangled in busywork while the major-party campaigns raise money to feed the pig.

Ballot Layout

Some reporters, like Gerson Borrero of NY1, argue that ballot position—the spot where a candidate’s name appears on the sheet voters mark—doesn’t really matter. According to election attorney Sarah Steiner, it absolutely does. In past years, candidates camped out overnight to secure favorable placement when the order was determined on a first-come, first-served basis. There have even been fistfights over jockeying for position.

Third parties such as the Democratic Socialists of America, the Working Families Party, the Conservative Party, and the Libertarian Party have tried to break the two-party monopoly by focusing on core values and building a nucleus of supporters rather than centering on a single candidate. This approach can break barriers more effectively than relying solely on newcomer independents. But even these groups can get tripped up by the complexities of ballot politics.

Source: New York City Board of Elections, 2021 ballot

In New York City’s 2021 mayoral election, the Working Families Party appeared on the general election ballot without a mayoral candidate. The line still appeared on the ballot but was completely blank. No name. No oval. Just political dead space. The party had endorsed Scott Stringer in the Democratic primary, then shifted support to Maya Wiley after Stringer faced allegations of misconduct. However, it failed to formally nominate anyone for the general election. Petition challenges disqualified potential candidates, and without a placeholder on file, the WFP line remained on the ballot with a completely blank slot for mayor. Under New York election law, parties retain their ballot lines if they meet statewide vote thresholds in prior elections, regardless of whether they nominate a candidate in a given cycle.

By 2025, the WFP had adjusted its strategy. It ranked Zohran Mamdani as its top choice in the Democratic primary but also filed a placeholder candidate, Gowri Krishna, to hold its ballot line in case none of its preferred contenders won. When Mamdani emerged as the Democratic nominee, the WFP replaced Krishna with him. This time, the ballot line was never in jeopardy of being left blank.

These two elections show how New York’s fusion voting system and ballot access laws favor political parties as institutions. A party can maintain a visible presence on the ballot even without an active candidate, and with strategic use of placeholders, it can protect its influence and adapt to uncertain outcomes. For the WFP, the difference between 2021 and 2025 was not about political priorities but about mastering the rules that determine who appears on the ballot.

I saw this play out firsthand when I took my 80-year-old mother to vote. She could not find my name on the ballot but spotted Adams immediately. I had to point to my own name for her to see it. The blank slot reserved for the nonexistent WFP candidate had a better position than me, an actual candidate. The Republican nominee had two slots, one labeled as an independent.

Other candidates also used New York’s flexible ballot rules this year. Eric Adams, after leaving the Democratic primary, created his own line called End AntiSemitism. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, added Protect Animals to highlight his animal welfare record. Andrew Cuomo, after losing the primary, remained on the ballot through a line called Fight and Deliver. These independent lines are more than vanity slogans. They are legally recognized pathways onto the general election ballot.

This is not simply a broken system. It is a system shaped by rules that few voters ever see and even fewer candidates fully understand. Those who succeed are often not the loudest or the most visionary, but the ones who know how to work within its quiet mechanics: ballot lines, signature thresholds, substitution deadlines. In New York City politics, the ballot is more than a list of names. It is a reflection of who understood the deliberately complicated rules of the game, created to keep outsiders out. The press should be educating the public about this, not telling them who to vote for.

THE PRESS THAT FORGOT THE PEOPLE

The U.S. Constitution begins with “We the People.”

Journalists were never meant to be the gatekeepers of democracy. That role belongs to the people, the citizens of the United States. The job of the press is to make sure the public has enough truth to make wise decisions. Not to coach. Not to censor. And definitely not to decide who gets to play.

But that is exactly what they are doing now.

In 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter from Monticello that still rings true today. “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves,” he said. “And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

That is the mandate: not to shield the public from ideas, not to preselect their choices, not to omit candidates who are on the ballot. The job is to inform the public’s discretion. Too often, journalism confuses insider access with its First Amendment duty to hold power accountable. Holding power accountable means giving space to challengers who threaten the status quo, not freezing them out. That is the job of the press.

I saw this firsthand. I made the ballot legally, followed every rule, and had a story worth telling. But because I wasn’t backed by one of the two major parties or funded like Bloomberg, I was treated like I didn’t exist. That is not journalism. That is market gatekeeping.

What we need is a free market of political ideas to challenge the status quo, not a monopoly enforced by press silence. A free press should not mean unlimited ink for a select few and blackout for everyone else. It also shouldn’t mean equal front-page space for every fringe candidacy. There is a middle ground. Not radio silence.

If you qualify for the ballot, you should be guaranteed a baseline level of coverage. That standard could be simple: one profile in a major outlet such as The New York Times, the paper of record, and one interview in broadcast or radio. Just enough space for the public to know you exist and to hear your case. After that, let the voters decide who is viable.

The press can still use its judgment, but its job is to open the conversation, not close it off before it starts. A functioning democracy requires more than two voices in rotation. It requires a press that treats the ballot as the threshold for coverage, not money, consultants or insider validation.

When the press shuts out new candidates, it shuts out new ideas. It empowers the powerful. It silences people with real-world experience and practical solutions, and instead feeds the rise of career politicians. The press needs to stop using money as a stand-in for viability.

The public sees through this. The election of Donald Trump and the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani are not flukes. They are protests. Voters are rejecting a media system that refuses to acknowledge anyone who hasn’t been pre-cleared by donors and consultants.

If the press wants to remain credible, it must stop managing narratives and start fully informing the people. Today, there are faster alternatives. Social media platforms are immediate and unfiltered, and while they often lack verification, the public is turning to them anyway. The only real advantage traditional journalism has left is fact-checking. But even that edge is fading. The press needs to evolve or perish. Journalists must stop acting like they are smarter than everyone else or risk becoming irrelevant.

I ran for mayor of New York City in 2021 to get out a message. My name was printed right there on the ballot alongside Eric Adams, Curtis Sliwa, and the party-backed machine. The New York Times published more than 110 articles on the mayoral race that year. They found room to mention the Republican nominee’s cats, but not a single line for the six other humans who also legally qualified. In 2009, the Times printed the names of thousands of marathon runners, including mine, yet offered nothing for those who had outmaneuvered the system to earn a place on the ballot. I followed every rule, filed every form, sat through the mandatory training, and gathered thousands of signatures by hand. I earned my spot. And then I watched the media pretend I didn’t exist. When they finally published their “Last Chance Guide to the Mayoral Election” a week before voting, I thought maybe—finally—there would be some acknowledgment. Instead, nothing. Not a word.

The press doesn’t see this as censorship. They call it editorial judgment. They’ll argue they’re not obligated to cover every candidate. Technically, they’re right. But let’s not pretend this is neutral. In a system where editorial boards endorse candidates with direct ties to their publishers like congressman Goldman who was endorsed by the New York Times, where debates are hosted by party-affiliated nonprofits, and where press coverage functions as a kind of political currency, silence isn’t apathy—it’s strategy.

Even when you try to break through, the system is built to filter you out. I gave a long, substantive interview to Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor and columnist for the New York Post. She was engaged, interested, even energized. But the story never ran. Her editors didn’t think it was newsworthy. She tried reframing it as a housing story. That didn’t work either. They already had their candidate in Eric Adams. That’s when I realized: it’s not just about the interview—it’s about who decides what gets published. The gatekeepers weren’t the reporters. They were the editors. And the editors answered to the publishers. That chain of command already knew who was “allowed” to matter.

That erasure wasn’t incidental. It was by design.

In the 2024 election cycle, political advertising in the U.S. reached unprecedented levels, with total spending across all media estimated at around $10.5 billion. This surge reflects how campaigns and political organizations increasingly use paid media to shape public opinion, control narratives, and target specific voter segments with tailored messages. While publishers like The New York Times benefit from elevated ad demand during election years, they rarely disclose exactly how much of their revenue comes from political or issue-based advertising, making it difficult to measure the full extent of this influence. The influx of political ad dollars can subtly shape editorial and business incentives, as news outlets become financially tied to the election cycle’s spending patterns, raising questions about independence and the potential for conflicts between journalistic priorities and revenue goals.

Narrative Management Masquerading as Journalism

What we have today isn’t political journalism—it’s narrative management. It flatters the powerful, filters out the inconvenient, and disguises omission as professionalism so it keeps getting paid. If democracy is supposed to rely on informed consent, then someone needs to explain how voters can make informed choices when half the ballot is blacked out.

A surgeon wouldn’t get away with hiding treatment options from a patient. Why should a political reporter?

I’ve heard every excuse in the book. I’ve listened to rationalizations from journalists like Errol Louis, Katie Glueck, Emma Fitzsimmons, randoms on Twitter, even teachers at the Columbia School of Journalism, where I’m now a student. None of it satisfies me. They all say the same thing—something about viability, polling minimums, relevance. Not one of them mentions fairness. Not one of them considers the idea that maybe journalism itself has slipped into groupthink.

What used to be the Fourth Estate has become something else, a self-appointed referee that thinks it can also play the game. The press says it wants to protect democracy. But it’s not protecting democracy. It’s managing access. And access, more and more, is only granted to the pre-approved.

This became personal not just as a candidate, but as a citizen. I’ve spent years serving underserved communities in New York, patients in public housing suffering from mold, lead, asbestos, and bureaucratic neglect. I’ve seen how the failure to tell the truth doesn’t just distort democracy—it kills people.

We need new voices. We need new ideas. New candidates. But how can we expect change if the press refuses to inform the public of all the options available?

Political Gatekeeping Disguised as Objectivity

When I questioned some of these omissions on air, in forums, and later in class, I got the same reaction again and again: a kind of dismissive condescension, as if I was too naive to understand how the “real world” works. But the real world is exactly what I do understand. I have worked in trauma bays, Rikers Island, and public housing. I have seen the rot up close.

The rationalizations I heard revealed a deeper problem. Journalism was not about introducing voters to fresh ideas or non-career politicians with real-life experience. It was about reinforcing the hierarchy. Even at the Columbia School of Journalism, when I brought this up in several classes, I got polite pushback. “That’s just how it works.” As if questioning it was childish. As if the real job of a journalist was to maintain the illusion that the system still works.

If someone navigates the byzantine laws of the Board of Elections, gets on the ballot, and qualifies under the same rules as everyone else, they and their message deserve at least one mention in the mainstream press. Not as a courtesy, but as a democratic obligation.

What’s at Stake

This isn’t about me. It’s about what we all stand to lose. The voters, the city, the public trust.

People were denied the chance to hear real policy debates on public housing mold, living conditions, and infrastructure failures. The communities I served as a doctor were politically abandoned, and the press never bothered to ask why. One patient I remember—let’s call her Maria—lived in a NYCHA unit with visible black mold on her ceiling. She had asthma that kept sending her to the ER. I treated her more than once. Her story wasn’t unique. But nobody at the New York Times or Daily News thought stories like hers were part of the mayoral race. And when I tried to speak up for her, they decided I didn’t count either.

In 2021, The Daily News ran an op-ed I wrote on 9/11’s 20th anniversary entitled New York’s Strength then and now, comparing the COVID response to what I saw at Ground Zero. It included my name and my title, but not one word about my candidacy despite it being just two months before the election.

So here we are in 2025 with many of the same dynamics in place: establishment candidates like Adams backed by party infrastructure, Cuomo still lurking around the edges, and Zohran Mamdani and others bypassing the press with direct-to-voter channels, doing what they can to sidestep the filters. We keep being told the press is here to save democracy, but maybe the press needs to stop sabotaging it first.

MEDIA POWER AND THE MYTH OF ELECTABILITY

The press doesn’t just report on elections, it constructs “viability” itself. In 2021, I attended a community meeting on housing affordability at St. Anthony’s Church on Houston Street. A local NY1 reporter was filming. When I introduced myself as a mayoral candidate, she physically stepped back. “Equal time,” she said, almost nervously, as if mere proximity might obligate coverage. It wasn’t just that the reporter stepped away from me. It was what her body language said about the way elections are covered in this city. It wasn’t fear. It was rules. Invisible ones. “Equal time,” she muttered, like a spell to ward off journalistic obligation. But equal time never came.

Because in the press playbook, a mayoral race isn’t a civic event. It’s a contest. And the only ones worth covering are the front-runners.

This is what media scholars call horse race journalism. The kind of coverage that reduces democracy to a betting pool. Who’s up in the polls. Who raised the most money this quarter. Whose consultant got poached.

Poll numbers aren’t just reported. They’re constructed into barriers. I heard it over and over: “If you’re not polling at two percent, we can’t justify coverage.” But coverage is what helps you poll. It’s circular logic.

Harvard’s Thomas Patterson tracked thousands of campaign stories and found nearly 80 percent focused on strategy or momentum. Not policy. Issue-driven candidates, especially independents, barely register in that ecosystem. The press says it wants ideas, but it rewards optics. It builds viability into a story arc and writes you out of it before voters even know your name.

And the consequences aren’t just about me. Voters exposed to horse race coverage become more cynical and less informed. Turnout drops. Trust collapses. The game becomes the goal. By the time the race is over, the public doesn’t remember what was at stake. Only who won.

What I experienced wasn’t an accident. It was the quiet machinery of exclusion, hiding in plain sight. A camera. A poll. A shrug.

First, they say you need two percent in the polls. Then they say they can’t cover you without it. The logic is circular, the exclusion self-reinforcing. By the time you realize what you were missing, the race is already over. And you were never really in it.

What’s most frustrating is that the legal basis cited in these moments is usually misunderstood or willfully distorted. The so-called Equal Time Rule, codified in Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. § 315), applies only to Federal Communications Commission-licensed broadcast television and radio stations. It says that if a candidate for public office is given airtime on those platforms, other legally qualified candidates must be offered “equal opportunity” to appear but only on the same class of media, and only under comparable conditions. Crucially, the rule does not apply to newspapers, digital media, cable news, podcasts, or streaming outlets like The New York Times, Politico, or even local print media. Moreover, the FCC provides broad exceptions for “bona fide news interviews,” “documentaries,” and “on-the-spot coverage of news events” [FCC, 2024; 47 U.S. Code § 315]. So when a journalist claims they can’t speak to an independent candidate because of equal time laws, what they’re really doing is hiding behind a myth—a legal shield that doesn’t even apply. It’s not neutrality. It’s exclusion dressed as compliance, probably promulgated by publishers through editors.

There’s a name for this deeper problem: agenda-setting. As McCombs and Shaw demonstrated in their foundational 1972 study, media outlets don’t just inform the public; they shape what the public thinks is important. That includes which candidates appear viable. Later research on “horse-race journalism” found that when coverage focuses on who’s ahead rather than what they stand for, it reinforces a hierarchy of exposure. Visibility becomes mistaken for credibility. Joseph C. Jackson’s classic analysis of presidential campaigns showed that candidates labeled early on as “front-runners” almost always won the nomination before a single vote was cast. The loop is self-fulfilling: coverage boosts polling, polling attracts money, money earns more coverage, and so on. In this system, press access is a currency and some names are never allowed to open an account.

In this constructed arena, the press acts as both referee and kingmaker. Voters often equate airtime with legitimacy. Candidates who make it onto the ballot but not into the narrative are left invisible. In New York City, mainstream outlets tend to treat independent and outsider campaigns as marginal. A few non-mainstream platforms push back. Max Politics, hosted by Ben Max, offers in-depth interviews with candidates who might otherwise be overlooked, building on his civic reporting at Gotham Gazette. He interviewed me, and only a handful of people tuned in. The City created interactive tools like “Meet Your Mayor” to present the full ballot. Hell Gate NYC and The Indypendent bring outsider-driven scrutiny, while City & State NY and Politico New York contribute policy-heavy context. Together, these independent outlets have become the de facto guardians of political pluralism in a city where ballot access does not ensure press access—and where silence from establishment media is too often mistaken for neutrality.

The only real interview I received from anyone connected to mainstream media came just three weeks before Election Day. It wasn’t NY1. It was NY1 Noticias, their Spanish-language sister channel. The reporter was Juan Manuel Benítez, and we spoke in Spanish over Zoom for six or seven minutes. I appreciated the conversation. He asked thoughtful questions and made a genuine effort to understand what our campaign was trying to do. But the reality was harder to ignore. The segment aired on a platform with limited reach, and it barely made a ripple. It was too late, too siloed, and too easy for the broader press to ignore.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the airtime—it was how the interview began. Before asking about my ideas or the city’s problems, he opened by pointing out how little money we’d raised and how we had no real chance of winning because of it. It wasn’t malicious—just routine. But that routine is the problem. That first question said everything about the state of our politics. Not “What do you believe?” or “Why are you running?” but “How much money do you have?” Toward the end, he asked what I thought needed to change in the system. I told him, honestly, the first thing that needs to change is the way we start these conversations. Because if we keep measuring worth by dollars raised, we’ll never make space for new ideas, real public service, or voices that come from outside the machine.

Serendipitously, that same journalist—Juan Manuel Benítez—is now one of my instructors at the Columbia School of Journalism where I am currently a student. I’ve come to admire his intellect, his fairness, and his depth. But the irony remains: even the best journalists can be caught in a system that trains them to see campaign finance before they see people.

But even these second-tier platforms can lull you into a false sense of progress. You’re grateful for the interview, the podcast, the profile but it rarely breaks through. You’re still locked outside the main stage, spinning your wheels while the outcome is already being framed elsewhere.

The press cannot trust the political parties whose primary function is self-preservation. The press has to threaten their very existence by presenting the truth. The whole truth. Not a version of the truth that fits the predetermined narrative of the network. Its like a scientist who starts an experiment with one idea in mind but the data indicated something else. When you make the data fit your primary objective that is not the truth. Data is messy and its up to the press to present it in the the most clear and complete way possible and up to the people to figure out what to do with it and ultimately who to vote for. The people have lost their faith in the press because the press has lost its faith in the people to make good decisions for themselves.

THE PRIMARIES- THE ELECTION I FUND BUT CAN’T VOTE IN

Eric Adams needed just 7% of registered voters to become New York City Mayor in 2021.

More than 1 million independent voters – 19% of all registered voters- were disenfranchised in the primary races. Registered independents outnumber Republicans by a ratio of 2 to 1, but Republicans got to vote in a primary. We Independents did not.

I’m a native New Yorker. An independent registered without party affiliation. The New York Board of Elections lists me as “blank” among the city’s registered voters.

Registered NYC Voters

DEM

REP

CON

WOR

OTH

BLANK

TOTAL

3,760,094

566,493

21,844

16,593

133,533

1,087,761

5,586,317

Source: New York Board of Elections 2021

To “blank” someone means to deliberately ignore or shut them out, exactly what happened to me not only as a candidate but as a voter.

Eric Adams spent $19 million to win New York City’s 2021 mayoral race—half of it funded by taxpayer dollars through the city’s public matching system, including from independents who were barred from voting in the closed Democratic primary that decided the race. The principle of “taxation without representation” is echoed in the Declaration of Independence, where Jefferson condemned the British Crown for “imposing taxes on us without our consent.” Though the exact phrase isn’t used, the grievance reflects the colonists’ core demand: that legitimate government must be based on the consent of the governed. That same principle is violated today when public funds are used to support partisan primaries that exclude millions of voters. We are, once again, taxed for a process that denies us representation.

The primary process partly originated as a deliberate effort to circumvent the will of the people. The roots of today’s primary system date back to the end of the Civil War, when efforts were made to prevent Black Americans from voting, after several Black candidates were elected to office in the South. Republicans and Democrats struck backroom deals to change state constitutions, push their agendas and candidates, and disenfranchise Black voters leading to the closed primary system we have today. Society simply accepts the role of primaries and political parties, even though they are not mentioned in the United States Constitution.

To be fair, the two-party structure has delivered one undeniable benefit: stability. With only two dominant poles, the choices are at least legible. Voters don’t have to sift through a dozen splinter factions with names that sound like seminar topics. The structure forces parties to absorb coalitions, aim for the middle, and present broad platforms that most people can understand. In a country as vast and divided as ours, that clarity has value. But stability comes at a cost: when the system excludes outsiders, suppresses dissent, and funds its own gatekeeping with public dollars, stability begins to look less like order and more like control.

Leaders with strong influence over a small but reliable group of voters, like president Trump can threaten lawmakers by primarying them. He has enough influence to elect and to reject congressional candidates. The problem with such power is it diminishes our system checks and balances on authority.

Insiders know the rules of the game better than anyone. Adams strategically avoided the primary this year and ran as an independent, calculating that his odds in the general election were stronger. Joe Lieberman used the same play in Connecticut in 2006, winning the general after losing his party’s primary.

Many are dissatisfied with the current mayor and his legal troubles, but maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising when you look closely. This outcome is to be expected in a structure that incentivizes corruption and allows 7% of the population to wag the dog.

MAMDANI EFFECT – BYPASS MAINSTREAM MEDIA

In 2021, Catherine Rojas, a teacher, was a socialist candidate running for NYC mayor. But she still did not get the mainstream media coverage they say they is reserved for someone who has 2 % of the vote. Just belonging to the PSL (Party for Socialism and liberation) alone garnered her 2.5% of the vote.

Mamdani, also a socialist, has the outsider facade but he’s a three-time elected State Senator so he knows the system. He is backed by the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) which must be differentiated from the PSL. PSL wants to replace the system. DSA wants to transform the system from within.

The two frequently get confused from one another. While the DSA work largely within the electoral system, running candidates in Democratic primaries and gaining traction in local races across New York City, the PSL takes a more radical, extra-parliamentary approach. PSL rejects both major parties and capitalism as a whole, focusing instead on building revolutionary consciousness, organizing direct actions, and advocating for systemic overhaul outside the confines of electoral politics. DSA candidates like Zohran Mamdani have won elected office and pushed progressive reforms from within. PSL candidates typically run symbolic campaigns to highlight anti-imperialism, police abolition, and socialism from below. Where DSA seeks to shift power through coalition-building and legislative influence, PSL aims to dismantle the system entirely.

Mamdani bypassed the media by pioneering a model of hypertargeted multimedia outreach that blends AI, cultural fluency and rapid-response communication. This is not just campaign strategy; it is a new form of political storytelling and reaching people more effectively than journalism organizations and they should be watching closely.

Mamdani’s team does not simply post speeches or slogans. Instead, it crafts layered content across multiple formats, including AI-enhanced ads, culturally specific videos, protest footage and meme graphics, all customized for distinct audiences.

One example is a Spanish-language campaign ad using an AI-generated voiceover, followed by a self-deprecating blooper reel showing Mamdani learning the lines himself. Another is a rap video featuring Indian cookbook legend Madhur Jaffrey, pairing policy with pop culture. This was even featured in the New York Times.

His team also posts livestreams and subtitled videos tailored for Muslim, South Asian and working-class voters, alongside real-time counters to misinformation and political attacks.

Most importantly, the response time is immediate. When Mamdani was targeted with an Islamophobic attack by a rival (Cuomo) campaign, his team responded the same day with direct-to-camera video, translated captions and organizing links. This is not just public relations. It is modern communications warfare.

Each output is designed for a specific audience, platform and tone. Instagram Reels speak to Gen Z. Subtitled WhatsApp clips reach aunties. Tweets are crafted for union workers.

This approach works because it meets people where they are, on their phones, in their language and in their culture. It does not require them to sift through dense political texts to find relevance. Or pick up the newspaper, or even turn on the television. It humanizes the candidate. The blooper reel was not just humor; it showed humility and effort. The rap video avoided feeling cringe because it was grounded in cultural specificity. This strategy builds trust and expands reach. By offering bilingual content and showing the process behind it, Mamdani’s team appears authentic. It also creates multiple points of entry for engagement. Some people follow for the politics. Others stay for the cooking video, the music or the humor. But all of them are hearing the message.

Journalism’s central challenge today is not just telling the truth. It is earning attention and building engagement. Journalism is in danger of becoming an independent candidate for mayor like me, where you have something important to say but no one wants to listen to it. Journalism is in danger if it does not adapt.

Mamdani’s campaign offers three lessons media organizations should consider.

First, tailor content to the audience without diluting the message. Newsrooms can translate content culturally, not just linguistically. A long and dry healthcare investigation could become a WhatsApp explainer, a TikTok dramatization and a podcast conversation. The facts remain the same, but the entry points change.

Second, be transparent about the process. Mamdani did not hide the use of AI. He showed the awkward behind-the-scenes footage. News outlets experimenting with AI, sourcing or corrections should follow this model. People are more likely to trust what they can see being made. When confronted Mamdani responds with poise, common sense, and an easy smile.

Third, build real-time capacity. Journalists cannot afford to wait two days to correct a false claim or explain a fast-moving controversy. News organizations should establish rapid-response teams made up of small and nimble groups able to produce short-form, verified content quickly for the platforms where audiences already live.

Most importantly tell the truth, the whole truth.

Democracy needs true equal press coverage on issues or else candidates like Mamdani who are excellent at campaigning and manipulating social media will win irrespective of their ability to govern.

THE PRESS HOLD’S THE KEY TO OUR DEMOCRACY

The key to fixing our democracy can be summed up in one term: the press.
Not the press we have today, but one that justly serves democracy. The First Amendment enshrined a press meant to inform the people not manage them. A press that educates the public about what’s broken, exposes corruption regardless of party, and holds all candidates on a ballot to the same standards. That duty includes turning its scrutiny inward and reporting on the shortcomings of the press itself.

It seems as if the press and the people are losing faith in each other. Instead of trusting voters to make their own decisions, it shapes the field before the race even begins. It rewards those with money, connections, or a talent for manipulating social media, while silencing newcomers with fresh ideas that challenge the status quo. That’s not democracy. It’s gatekeeping.

If you pass the screening test of making the ballot, that should guarantee at least one fair mention in the mainstream media early enough in the race for voters to hear a new message—and for the status quo candidates to feel enough pressure to improve the quality of their own ideas. That would be the beginning of a true free market of democracy. As Milton Friedman once said, “The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.” Right now, the exchange between voters and the political system benefits only one side. The press holds the power to correct this course—and the responsibility to do so.

Two weeks before Election Day, political columnist and election lawyer Howard Graubard surveyed the 2021 field in the Red Hook Star-Revue with acid wit. He dismissed the right-wingers as “kooks,” the libertarian as a “stand-up comic,” the PSL candidate as part of a cult that supports dictators, and another as “batshit out of his mind.”

As for me, he offered what might have been the most backhandedly flattering endorsement of my campaign:

“Those looking for a candidate more in the mode of a Kathryn Garcia would probably prefer the ‘Humanity United’ candidate, Dr. Raja Flores, a really, really impressive guy who is Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital and Ames Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
People I respect who have spoken with Dr. Flores find him smart, well-informed, committed to good government, and absolutely sane —with the slight exception of his eccentric belief that he is a real candidate for mayor. I’ll probably vote for Eric Adams, but Dr. Flores seems very tempting.”

That second-to-last line nailed it.

In New York politics, you’re only a “real” candidate if the press decides you are. Looking back, there are many things I could have done differently if I had fully understood the interlocking power of press, election laws, and political machinery. But one thing is certain: I cannot unsee the truth.

The poll worker who didn’t recognize my name didn’t fail democracy. Democracy failed her. And it was the press that failed democracy. It was the press that denied her the information she needed to make a free and informed choice. When the public is uninformed, that’s not voter apathy. That’s an editorial decision.

So I took my ballot from her, filled in the oval next to my name, and walked to the other end of the gym to hand it to the man standing by the scanner. I figured I’d give it one more shot.

“Do you recognize this name?” I asked, pointing to it.

“No, I do not,” he said.