Columbia Journalism School's Tow Center for Digital Journalism identified 189 influencers with ties to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration, mapped through a private Signal group called "NYC Creators Announcements." The group's operator is a paid city employee. City Hall did not invent influencer relations; it built a version of it inside government, using public resources, where paid and unpaid relationships sit in the same private channel.
Governments have always cultivated relationships with sympathetic press. What's different here is that a single creator can be an independent commentator, a political supporter, and a paid city contractor at once, often without an audience able to tell which role applies to any given post.
What Is a Government Creator Relations Program?
A creator relations program is an organized effort to provide social media creators with information, access, assets, or paid opportunities in hopes of generating coverage and engagement. It does not require a promise of coverage in return; access alone is common. NYC Creators Announcements is one such program, run inside the Mayor's Office of the City of New York.
Emilia Rowland is the city's Director of New Media and Cultural Communications and administers the group. The Columbia Journalism Review Tow Center report traces the group's origin to Creators4Zohran, a volunteer network from Mamdani's 2025 campaign that was carried into City Hall after his election. The FTC's Endorsement Guides are the federal standard that governs when a creator relationship like this one must be disclosed to an audience.
Does Rowland's Family Background Change the Story?
The New York Post's reporting on Rowland found that her grandfather founded The Rowland Agency and that both of her parents work in public relations, making her a third-generation industry figure now running a government program built on the same creator-outreach tactics agencies use for corporate clients. The Post frames this as ironic given Rowland's public criticism of "legacy press" and wealthy media owners.
The more useful takeaway for a PR trade audience isn't the family tree, it's the pattern: agency-trained creator relations skills applied inside government, without the disclosure infrastructure that agency clients are expected to maintain.
How Many Creators Are Actually Inside the Network?
The Tow Center's influencer count identified 189 influencers tied to the administration by cross-referencing a January press briefing attendee list, social posts, and public contract records. Members describe the group as exceeding 200 participants, ranging from accounts with a few thousand followers to some with millions.
Membership in the Signal group itself is unpaid. Separately, individual city agencies contract creators directly for specific campaigns, at rates the report and subsequent coverage put between $5,000 and $20,000 per campaign, covering topics like composting, tenant rights, and public budget participation.
Where Does Disclosure Break Down?
The FTC's endorsement disclosure guidance requires disclosure when a material connection exists between a creator and a sponsor, something an audience would not reasonably expect. Membership in an unpaid creator group does not, by itself, trigger that obligation. The Tow Center report is careful to separate two categories: creators who receive information and access without payment, and creators paid directly by city agencies for specific campaigns. It is that second category, and any other form of compensation or benefit, where disclosure is legally required.
The report found that disclosure is inconsistent even within the paid category: some posts carry a paid-partnership tag, others carry none, for content commissioned by the same city program. Rowland has defended the model publicly, arguing the office's job is not to preserve old rules that once let traditional gatekeepers control public information access. That framing does not address the actual FTC standard, which turns on material connection, not on who used to control the microphone.
What Happened When the Program Drew Scrutiny?
After the Tow Center report published, amNewYork's coverage of the Signal records issue reported that City Hall took "corrective action" over the Signal group's disappearing-messages setting, following questions about whether the encrypted chat complied with New York's public-records retention rules. City Hall told the outlet Signal use is permitted internally as long as staff follow record-retention and Freedom of Information Law requirements.
That is the risk any creator relations program built on an ephemeral messaging app carries: the platform choice becomes the story, on top of the disclosure story.
Who's Actually in the Network?
City Hall has not released a member list for NYC Creators Announcements. The Tow Center report names several of the 189 identified influencers directly. The representative examples below cover the distinct relationship structures the report describes, rather than a full roster.
| Creator | Background | Relationship structure | Payment status |
|---|
| Sari Beth Rosenberg's teacher profile | NYC teacher, digital strategist for the American Federation of Teachers, 450,000+ followers | Access recipient: events, information, no payment | Not paid for coverage, per the report |
| Jose Vilson | Adjunct professor, PhD in sociology and education from Columbia Teachers College | Unpaid, boundary-conscious: interviews city officials but declines payment on principle | Unpaid; told CJR he wants to "keep the lines clear" |
| Diego León (@dandyinthebronx) | Former preschool teacher turned style creator | Personal supporter: content driven by political enthusiasm, not a formal arrangement | Unpaid |
| Grasie Mercedes's official site | Actor | Paid campaign creator | Paid; tagged #paidpartnership |
| New York Nico's MTA campaign profile | Filmmaker | Agency-brokered: paid through a marketing firm under contract to the city | Paid via agency (Caryn Pace) |
Two additional names circulate outside the CJR report itself: Allie O'Brien and an Instagram account called bananadotgov, both highlighted on the Creators4Zohran page and covered by other outlets. Neither appears in the Tow Center's own text, and it's unconfirmed whether either is a member of the private Signal group.
The pattern across the named, paid relationships is inconsistent tagging: NYC Health + Hospitals uses #paidpartnership, the Campaign Finance Board uses #NYCVotesPartner, and the Civic Engagement Commission's influencers have used @nyccec or @thePeoplesMoney. Three agencies, three conventions, no shared standard, which is the core disclosure gap the report flags.
What Does This Mean for Government and PR Practice?
The relationships in a creator program fall into distinct tiers, and the FTC obligation tracks material connection, not tone of coverage. Treating an unpaid, enthusiastic supporter the same as a paid campaign creator, inside one undifferentiated Signal group, is where the disclosure risk actually sits.
| Relationship type | Mechanism | Disclosure obligation |
|---|
| Access-only creator list | Advance information, event invites, no payment | None, absent any payment or other material benefit |
| Unpaid personal support | Creator posts favorably out of political enthusiasm | None on its own; favorable coverage alone is not a material connection |
| Paid campaign content | Direct or agency-routed payment per post | Required; clear, in-content disclosure under FTC rules |
A record-retention plan for whatever platform carries the talking points is a separate obligation entirely. Ephemeral messaging apps and public-records law do not mix well for any government or public-facing program.
Conclusion
City Hall didn't invent influencer relations. It imported a familiar PR practice into government, where questions about payment, disclosure, and public records become considerably more complicated. The mechanism is a press list run through an encrypted app; the open question is whether an audience can tell which of a creator's three roles, independent commentator, political supporter, or paid contractor, applies to any given post.
