The NY1 Problem

Candidates who appear exclusively on Spectrum’s NY1 channel are shutting millions of New Yorkers out of the voting process.

(originally published November 2018)

I live in New York. I want to watch the attorney general candidates’ debate on TV. Same with the state comptroller debate. Same with the New York candidates for U.S. Senator. I want to watch an interview with the head of New York City’s Board of Elections as he tries to defend the necessity of a four-page, double-sided, perforated ballot that comes with no instructions. I want to watch the mayor squirm during his weekly sit-down on the show “Inside City Hall” as he tries to explain why his Democracy NYC commission sent a letter out to 400,000 voters erroneously telling them they were no longer on the rolls.

Unfortunately, I can’t watch any of these things. I can’t even watch them online after they air. That’s because NY1, the only TV channel in the area devoted to New York news and politics, is not available where I live. Its carrier, Spectrum, doesn’t offer service in my area. You can get it in Manhattan. You can get it in Queens and Staten Island. But because I live in this obscure sliver of New York City called “Brooklyn”—not sure if you’ve heard of it—I can’t.

According to this coverage map, the only part of Brooklyn Spectrum serves is this swath near the East River.

Oh, and this one-block rectangle in the middle of the borough, I guess?

But nowhere else in this 72-square-mile borough of 2.6 million people can you watch NY1. It’s the same deal in The Bronx, by the way, unless you live in an area the size of a whiskey shot right above Manhattan. And NYC’s suburban neighbor Long Island gets left out entirely. No wonder Spectrum has been ordered to leave the state for lack of expansion—a decision the cable giant is currently appealing.

Though I’m shut out of the Spectrum zone, my Brooklyn address permits me to patronize Verizon Fios. I figured they’d have something comparable to NY1. But every time I tune in to Fios1, it’s broadcasting Long Island high school soccer games. Sometimes volleyball.

This is an election year. Sixteen million New York state residents are tasked with electing a governor and dozens of other high-level officials in a state where corruption indictments run rampant. Choosing New York State’s next attorney general is as important as voting in our national congressional elections. (The state AG can decide to be the governor’s watchdog, or a watchdog on a governor who urgently needs one.) Yes, high school kids should play soccer. And people who like high school soccer should watch it. But people who want to watch crucial debates and in-depth state and city political coverage on TV should not be prevented from doing so because of their zip code.

This year I became 4000% more politically informed, and not just because Donald Trump and his spineless minions are chipping away at our democracy faster than anyone could have anticipated. My increased political awareness came out of a realization of how ignorant I was of my home state’s voting regulations. I was tired of blindly voting for Democrats I knew nothing about, who were keeping my state of residence the gerrymandered backroom-deal cesspool it’s been since Tammany Hall. So I dug in, hard. And with each answer I uncovered, I was troubled by more questions—like why is New York the only state in the union that has two primaries every election season, causing endless voter confusion and low turnout? Or, why is New York the only state to practice “fusion voting,” which allows one candidate to appear on multiple party lines for the same race on the same ballot? (If you’re a New York voter, you’ll see Andrew Cuomo running for governor on the ballot four times under four different parties.) And how have Republicans enjoyed a baffling 50-year lock on the State Senate in such a deeply blue state? (Oh, right—gerrymandering!)

The deeper I got into these questions, the sicker I felt about my city, my state and these perversions of voter representation that play out on a national scale. Yet I am resisting the urge so many feel when they realize the state of play in their politics—to throw up my hands and tune out. The more harmful voter laws I uncover, the more I want to elect people who can speak to their concrete plans for changing them.

This brings me back to NY1. As we all have become painfully aware, voting is important, and informed voting is even more so. NY1 has some hard-nosed TV reporters who genuinely want to uncover the facts. (It’s not all covered by the New York Times.) It should not have a lock on local politics. All citizens should be able to see their candidates debate the issues, or be held accountable in TV interviews. Yes, most of the time these politicians will grandstand and evade, but sometimes they may offer real insights and bold plans. Sometimes they’ll show their true colors and those colors aren’t pretty. Plus, there are things that only happen in debates—like Democratic attorney general candidate Letitia James refusing to look even one time at her opponent Keith Wofford during their NY1 head-to-head (she reportedly stared straight into the camera for the entire hour, and, according to follow-up reporting by NY1’s Grace Rauh, outdid Wofford by far at giving numerous inaccurate statements about her record); or things like Republican state comptroller challenger Jonathan Trichter being threatened with ejection by NY1 anchor Errol Louis after breaking an agreement not to bring props to the debate with incumbent Thomas DiNapoli. Some of it is theater, yes, but much of it is vital information for voters.

Candidates should not be debating on a channel that only certain of their constituents can get. Spectrum’s NY1, arbitrarily unavailable in most of Brooklyn, The Bronx, Long Island and millions of homes upstate, should not be the go-to for New York’s political elite. Candidates should debate on free television and radio stations available for all New Yorkers to watch in real time or after the fact online. There should not be a pay wall. Anything less than this runs counter to having a more informed, engaged electorate.