Wash Heights Council Candidate Paid Blogger For Positive Coverage

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — A Washington Heights and Inwood Assembly member running to replace Ydanis Rodriguez in City Council is one of several uptown politicians whose campaigns paid a local Spanish-language blogger in exchange for favorable coverage, according to public disclosures and a media report.

A campaign committee for Carmen De La Rosa, the Democratic nominee for City Council in District 10, made three payments totaling $1,200 to blogger Jose Zabala between Oct. 2020 and June 2021 for "Social Media," according to campaign finance filings.

Those payments coincided with frequent mentions of De La Rosa on Zabala's blog, Zabala al Día, which is devoted in part to Dominican readers in Upper Manhattan.

The pattern was first reported Monday by the nonprofit news outlet THE CITY, which documented similar payments to Zabala by U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Council candidates Shaun Abreu and Pierina Sánchez, as well as De La Rosa. In all cases, the payments appeared to be legal, the outlet reported, though they take advantage of a gray area that allows for paid promotions with few disclosures.

In a June 5, 2021, post, Zabala calls De La Rosa "the leader most valued to occupy the Council Member seat for District 10." The Instagram post goes on to mention that De La Rosa has the backing of Espaillat.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jose Zabala (@zabalaaldia)

Zabala also wrote articles about De La Rosa on May 29 and June 2.

The $700 from De La Rosa's campaign was made two days after the third post on June 7.

Two articles on Oct. 21, which also coincided with a $200 payment one day later, focus on De La Rosa's endorsement from a major movement looking to elect more women in the upcoming New York City elections.

De La Rosa's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Patch, but told THE CITY in a statement that they paid Zabala for Spanish-language outreach.

City campaign finance law only requires campaigns to include a notice in paid advertisements if the campaign wrote or co-wrote the script, THE CITY reported. While legal, the arrangement may prompt ethical concerns in an era where online influencers wield increasing power in politics.

THE CITY report also delves into Zabala's coverage of the competitive race between De La Rosa and Johanna Garcia for the Democratic nominee in the District 10 City Council race. Garcia, who is Cuban-American, is the chief of staff for State Senator Robert Jackson, the lone non-Dominican elected official currently representing Upper Manhattan.

De La Rosa eventually won the primary with 60 percent of the vote to Garcia's 40 percent.

• Read More: Candidate's Cuban Ethnicity Targeted In Wash Heights Election

Zabala posted a Facebook video in May featuring longtime Espaillat advisor Jaime Vargas as a "political analyst."

In the video, Vargas called on voters to preserve Washington Heights and Inwood's Dominican political power in the City Council primary, according to THE CITY.

De La Rosa, like the other candidates, was supported by Espaillat during his primary. Zabala named Espaillat in more than 400 articles since Espaillat was elected to Congress in 2016, and the congressman has sent the blogger more than $3,200 since last year, THE CITY reported.

The payments are not exclusive to Espaillat's camp, however. State Sen. Robert Jackson, a former rival of Espaillat's, likewise sent payments to Zabala in 2018.

Jackson's office told Patch Zabala was explicitly hired during a campaign at the time to promote his events in Spanish, not for news coverage.

De La Rosa is heavily favored to win the Nov. 2 general election, where she will face Republican challenger Edwin De La Cruz.

Patch reporter Nick Garber contributed to this report.