An lawyer for the paper made the demand in a letter despatched to town’s Regulation Division Friday.
“Banning [senior City Hall reporter Chris] Sommerfeldt from attending the Mayor’s press conferences is plainly unconstitutional,” lawyer Matthew Leish wrote, citing each 1st and 14th modification points.
FILE – Reporters overlaying Metropolis Corridor, together with Chris Sommerfeldt at heart, increase their fingers to ask Mayor Eric Adams questions throughout an off-topic press convention at Metropolis Corridor on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Each day Information)
Sommerfeldt has not been referred to as on by the mayor’s press employees in additional than three months. The reporter had simply requested a follow-up to a different journalist’s query when Adams mentioned: “You’re calling out a lot, Chris, stop calling out!” the mayor mentioned in a sing-song tone. “You must have done that in school.”
“Listen, if he does that again, he’s not to come into our conferences,” Adams then mentioned to his press employees.
Sommerfeldt then requested the mayor, “You want to take a question from me, then?”
“He did it again,” Adams replied. “Make sure security knows he’s not allowed back into this room.”
Destruction and building — we’re speaking each at at present’s media availability at Metropolis Corridor.
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“The Mayor’s press conferences are generally open to any credentialed journalist, and the purported reason for Mr. Sommerfeldt’s exclusion – the fact that he asked questions without being called on – is completely arbitrary given that other journalists have done exactly the same thing without incident,” Leish wrote.
The lawyer mentioned the ban additionally violated Sommerfeldt’s 14th Modification proper to due course of to deal with the proposed ban.
Requested throughout a spherical desk on the upcoming mayoral major on WPIX Thursday about his plans, Sommerfeldt mentioned he was going to proceed “doing my job.”
Metropolis corridor didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The letter comes amid a groundswell of opposition to the ban.
