Mayor Eric Adams has been complaining about unfair press coverage of his administration basically from the moment he took office. "If y'all want to acknowledge it or not, I'm doing a damn good job," Adams told reporters this past summer.
But Adams's mayoralty has had one crucial outlet in its corner: Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.
After eight years of hammering Bill de Blasio with embarrassing stories, the Post endorsed the former NYPD captain and human embodiment of the real estate industry in May of 2021, and has since then tailored its coverage accordingly. The tabloid that used to stake out the Park Slope YMCA to catch de Blasio leaving after his morning workout suddenly isn't very curious about where our nightlife-obsessed mayor is hanging out, or whom he's hanging out with.
This weekend, after it was revealed that the FBI had seized the mayor's phones and iPad as part of an investigation into whether the government of Turkey funneled donations into the Adams campaign, the Post kicked into defensive mode.
"Are the feds targeting Eric Adams because he criticized Joe Biden?" the Post's editorial page innocently asked, in what amounted to a glorified Facebook post that wondered why Adams was being pursued so quickly while—gasp—Hunter Biden is allowed to walk the earth a free man.
Even the Post's supposedly straight news coverage betrayed whose side the paper is on. Their exclusive report this weekend noted that federal investigators are looking into whether Adams fast-tracked the opening of the $300 million Turkish consulate in late 2021, after he had won the Democratic primary but while he was still Brooklyn borough president—but, according to the Post's sources, this was no big deal.
"[T]he messages don't appear to show any criminal activity beyond typical outreach that elected officials do on behalf of constituents, according to several sources briefed on the matter," the Post story noted, before quoting two Adams allies—former Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Bronx Councilmember Kevin Riley—to underscore just how routine and ho-hum it is for an elected official to try and pull strings for, uh, the government of Turkey.
"I don't see any issue at all. Every elected official makes calls to City agencies on behalf of entities, businesses, and constituents. That is what we do," Diaz told the Post.
OK then!
The New York Times, which apparently does not have a mandate to protect Adams at all costs, also wrote about the FBI's inquiry into Adams and the Turkish consulate and reminded readers that it is in fact pretty weird for a Brooklyn borough president to lean on the Fire Department to open a building located in Manhattan that houses members of the Turkish government. The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, literally cut the ribbon on the structure in September of 2021, and noted that it represented the country's "increased power." (Also in the Times report: The feds also showed up to interview FDNY officials the day after they raided the home of Adams's top campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs.)
Some Post reporters are reportedly tired of the gymnastics they have to perform when covering Adams. Per Semafor: "A Post veteran tells us that newsroom is getting a bit sick of the 'push from the top to lie.'"
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