Andrew Cuomo’s Fall From Grace: Lessons for a Free Press
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been the subject of recent sexual assault allegations. Photo by Diana Robinson.
One of the most fundamental freedoms enshrined in the U.S. Constitution is the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. At its best, American journalism has been responsible for feats such as revealing the US government’s lies about the Vietnam War and the Progressive Era muckrakers who exposed the corruption of both big business and the government, ushering in a subsequent era of reforms. In both of these examples, the media took an assertive stance against abuse and exploitation of the common person by the people in power, and served its role as one of many checks in our Federalist system.
However, the blatant partisan inclinations of much of the modern American press has created a significant deviation from this function with the recent slew of scandals related to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. While the recent stories about Cuomo’s underreporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes and special vaccine access given to cronies were able to expose governmental negligence and deceit in the New York state government, these scandals are only a part of a long history of corruption on the governor’s watch. The failure of many press outlets to investigate these events and alert the public sooner to the evidence of malfeasance in the state administration must serve as a wake-up call for journalism to return to the days of Upton Sinclair and Ida B. Wells instead of the hyperpartisan spectre it has devolved into.
Andrew Cuomo’s fall from grace was hard and fast. On December 13th, 2020, former Cuomo administration economic adviser Lindsey Boylan accused the governor of sexual harassment, making her the first of several women to come forward with allegations. Only about 5 weeks later, on January 28th, 2021, New York state Attorney General Letitia James released investigation findings that the COVID-19 death toll in New York nursing homes was underreported by approximately 50%. This number was found to be part of a deliberate effort to cover up deaths that many attribute to the governor’s decision to move 6,326 sick COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, leading to the spread of the virus throughout these facilities. Top aides to the governor prevented top health officials from releasing scientific data to the public during the time when Cuomo was securing his $4 million book deal, which is now under investigation for allegations that he might have violated state law by using state resources to help write it. Following what felt like the opening of Pandora’s Box, headline after headline flooded the airwaves revealing more information about both of these scandals; to top it all off, it was announced in late March that the governor gave special access to vaccines that other New Yorkers did not have, like Regeneron Pharmaceuticals executives.
Although this barrage of news came into the national spotlight within the last few months, it is far from the beginning of Andrew Cuomo’s history of mismanagement, toxicity, and scandal. Rather, it is merely the first time that it has been consistently reported on in a high profile fashion. The news of harassment allegations, the nursing home scandal, and the vaccine cronyism came to no surprise to people who have worked with the governor during his tenure.
According to an inside look at the workplace he oversaw by New York Magazine, “through years of ruthless tactics, deployed both within his office and against anyone he perceived as an adversary, critic, or competitor for authority, Cuomo has fostered a culture that supported harassment, cruelty, and deception.” Some examples of this behavior include making a mockery of top aide Melissa DeRosa a segment of a party he hosted, threatening the career of Democratic State Assembly member Ron Kim for being critical of the nursing home decisions, and micromanaging people hired to fix the New York City subway system, causing former New York Transit Authority Presiden Andy Byford to resign. The governor was known to have pressured at least 30 women who worked for him to wear expensive clothes and heels or to face insulting comments by him. The norm was objectifying women, particularly younger women, through patronizing comments and behaviors that made many uncomfortable, while also assuming a mob boss-like leadership style rife with intimidation and hostility that directly counters the endearing persona of “America’s Governor” that was perpetuated throughout 2020.
In addition to creating an unhealthy and toxic work environment, there is a well-documented record of scandals that have arisen during Cuomo’s tenure that make the nursing home numbers cover-up wholly unsurprising. In 2014, Cuomo halted the work of and eventually dissolved the Moreland Commission, an anti-corruption watchdog, when they subpoenaed the advertising firm for the state’s Democratic Party and Andrew Cuomo’s individual campaign on suspicion of campaign finance law violation. Other incidents have included the Buffalo Billion debacle, where a top official illicitly awarded $850 million in contracts to Cuomo political allies and campaign donors, and whistleblower reports over the Mario Cuomo Bridge replacement of the worn-down Tappan Zee Bridge, which exposed structural deficiencies in the bridge going under-investigated by the state. All of these scandals were reported primarily in local outlets, but noticeably did not receive a lot of national scrutiny or deter the resoundingly flattering news coverage that Cuomo received during the pandemic. Although it would be the logical course of action for a free press, all of the events that preceded 2020 did not provide an impetus for more investigation into Cuomo during the pandemic.
With all of these stories taken together, and in spite of early reports of negligence with the nursing homes dating back to summer 2020, the disproportionately favorable coverage that Cuomo received during the coronavirus pandemic highlights a broader issue with how this type of reporting enabled him to once again evade accountability for issues that arose on his watch. Around the same time indicators of the nursing home scandal began to arise, perhaps the most noticeable example of the shower of praise Cuomo received in many outlets was how his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, covered his pandemic response. The nepotism present in these interviews blurred the lines between entertainment and reporting, creating endearing and entertaining moments that were intended to woo audiences but seldom resulted in any sort of scrutiny or tough questions for the governor. Other examples of political media and entertainment fusing include the awarding of an Emmy to Cuomo for his daily Coronavirus press briefings, even as cases were on the rise after a summer decline and his $4 million book deal, which is currently being investigated.
The fusion between journalism and entertainment as it pertains to Governor Cuomo showcases something that is important for all Americans to recognize: no media source is immune from bias, and holding public officials accountable must transcend our partisan leanings. Many mainstream outlets that tend to be left-leaning revealed that they are not immune to the issues that arose with right-leaning outlets’ coverage of Donald Trump. The progression of Cuomo’s pandemic coverage resembled the cultish, blindly obedient cycles in some right wing outlets that refused to adequately scrutinize Trump, even when his misdeeds were irrefutable. Conversely, many of these same right-leaning outlets were critical of Cuomo when the early signs of mismanagement with the nursing homes became clear in a way that they haven’t been with Republicans. On both left and right, partisanship has become an industry-wide issue in modern journalism.
The early pandemic coverage of Cuomo and dismissal of his latest scandals, coming after many years of mismanagement and corruption in close proximity to him, signal a fundamental failure of certain outlets to live up to the core principle of free press: to ensure that the people we elect are serving us all and serve as a defacto fourth check on the three branches of our government. In a country that has often had greater levels of press protections than many others, it is time for the industry to take a critical look at whether it is serving the American people with the truth, or whether it is serving partisan interests and entertainment over accountability.
Olivia Hussey (CC ‘22) is a senior editor for CPR and political science and dance double major on a pre-law track.