Mamdani named Rafael Espinal, a former NY State Assemblyman and Executive Director of the Freelancers Union, to lead the Mayor’s Office on Media and Entertainment. The office handles a variety of functions, including working with the city’s hundreds of community and ethnic media outlets. The mayor also said he would not stick to his predecessor’s restrictions on press access to the city – handed down on his way out of office – however Mamdani’s first press conference at City Hall was with influencers and news creators, not members of media outlets.