{"id":237593,"date":"2026-05-20T02:07:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T02:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237593\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T02:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T02:07:23","slug":"new-york-to-review-press-credentialing-after-mangione-backers-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237593\/","title":{"rendered":"New York to Review Press Credentialing After Mangione Backers\u2019 Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s office on Monday said that it would review the process for approving press credentials following inflammatory comments that some of Luigi Mangione\u2019s supporters made outside the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building.<\/p>\n

The statement from the mayor\u2019s office came after Mr. Mangione appeared briefly in court on Monday, and more than a dozen of his supporters, some with press credentials, attended. One of them, Lena Weissbrot, stood in front of cameras outside the courthouse after the hearing with a badge around her neck that read \u201cPRESS.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her comments, she said the children of Brian Thompson, the health care executive whom Mr. Mangione is accused of killing, were better off without their father.<\/p>\n

A reporter from The Daily News, Molly Crane-Newman, posted<\/a> videos<\/a> of the comments on social media, drawing outrage and in a few cases, support.<\/p>\n

Mr. Thompson\u200b, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in 2024. He was left bleeding on the sidewalk, a trail of shell casings next to him, in a\u200b \u200bbrazen killing that shocked many Americans.<\/p>\n

But some people have since argued that the shooting was a justifiable outgrowth of Americans\u2019 frustration with the health care system.\u200b<\/p>\n

Ms. Weissbrot\u2019s comments on Monday were a preview of sentiments that may become more common as Mr. Mangione\u2019s state trial, scheduled for September, brings the views of his most fervent supporters into the public eye. And they raised questions about who is able to receive press passes under New York City\u2019s current media credentialing system.<\/p>\n

Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mayor Mamdani, said that the administration was \u201creassessing the city\u2019s process and standards for press credentialing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until 2021, the Police Department issued press credentials to reporters in the city. But in 2022, a new law went into effect, moving the credentialing powers to the Mayor\u2019s Office of Media and Entertainment.<\/a><\/p>\n

To receive a press card, applicants must submit six or more \u201carticles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films, or audios published, broadcast, or cablecast\u201d within the 24 months before the application, according to the city agency. A member of the press can mean someone employed by a traditional news-gathering organization or a \u201cself-employed newsperson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once a person is credentialed, revoking their access is not simple \u2014 the policy says that no agency, including the Police Department, can seize or revoke a valid press card until an administrative hearing is held before the city\u2019s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.<\/p>\n

In an interview later on Monday, Ms. Weissbrot defended her statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s a little inflammatory, but the American people are really mad about the health insurance industry,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

A lawyer for Mr. Mangione, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said in a statement that the comments from his supporters \u201cdo not represent the views of Luigi, nor the tens of thousands who have shown their support from around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only people who speak for Luigi are his attorneys,\u201d she said. \u201cWe condemn these vile and irresponsible statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Ms. Weissbrot\u2019s side\u200b on Monday was Abril Rios, another of Mr. Mangione\u2019s supporters who appeared to be one of the first to receive an official press credential from New York City. Over the past year, Ms. Rios has emerged as one of the leaders of the self-styled \u201cMangionistas.\u201d\u200b The group has an Instagram account with slightly more than 300 followers.<\/p>\n

Ms. Weissbrot said she submitted six of her personal notes that she took from hearings she covered to the city. She said the writing she submitted did not include opinions: \u201cThey were pretty much observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norman Siegel, the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union who is now a civil liberties lawyer in private practice, filed a lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of three online journalists to broaden who can be considered credentialed press in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought at the time that the process was elitist, exclusionary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But if it is creating a systemic problem, it might be time to rethink the guidelines, he said.<\/p>\n

One member of the \u201cMangionistas\u201d told reporters on Monday that the coverage of the trial by legacy media, which they described as having an agenda against Mr. Mangione, had spurred them to do it themselves.<\/p>\n

She identified herself only as \u201cAshley,\u201d declining to give her full name, though it appeared on the press pass dangling around her neck.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Weiser and Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s office on Monday said that it would review the process for approving press credentials following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[92916,15072,30801,46875,9,24,55,54,23328,56,28318],"class_list":["post-237593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-brian-1974-2024","tag-health-insurance-and-managed-care","tag-luigi","tag-mangione","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-newspapers","tag-ny","tag-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}