The New York Editorial Board is an informal group of veteran journalists hoping to fill some of the space left by the retreat of newspaper editorial boards from the city's civic life by conducting and sharing editorial board-style interviews with candidates for high office and other civic leaders.
Our interviews are on the record and we identify the participants in each conversation in the transcripts published here. Each journalist will report independently on interviews as they and their editors see fit. The Board does not endorse candidates or policies, but we hope the interviews are helpful contributions to the rigorous vetting of candidates, elected officials, and other civic leaders that New York City deserves.
The New York Editorial Board is affiliated with the New York Independent Journalism Project, an initiative of New York Law School’s Center for New York City and State Law.
Members
Akash Mehta
Akash Mehta is the editor-in-chief and founder of New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom launched in 2020 to report on power and politics in New York state. He grew up in Brooklyn, and in another life he was a member of his local community board and a policy fellow at the City Council.
Alyssa Katz
Alyssa Katz is editor-in-chief of The Forward. A former member of the New York Daily News editorial board, Katz was previously executive editor of nonprofit newsroom THE CITY, and editor of The New York World and City Limits. Katz writes about housing, mental health, and the intersection of business and government, including the books “Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us” and “The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life.“ She lives in Brooklyn.
Ben Max
Ben Max is Executive Editor and Program Director at New York Law School’s Center for New York City and State Law. He hosts the Max Politics podcast and writes on New York politics, government, and policy. From 2014 to 2023, he was Executive Editor of Gotham Gazette. He lives in Brooklyn and is on X at @TweetBenMax.
Ben Smith
Ben Smith is the editor in chief and co-founder of Semafor, an ambitious new global news company. He has been media columnist for the New York Times, editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, a reporter at Politico, and before that covered New York City politics for the New York Sun, New York Observer, and New York Daily News, and launched some of New York’s first political blogs. He lives in Brooklyn.
Christina Greer
Christina Greer is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University. She is the author of Black Ethnics and How to Build a Democracy, and co-editor of Black Politics in Transition. She writes a weekly column for The Amsterdam News and co-hosts the FAQ-NYC podcast.
Harry Siegel
Harry Siegel, a longtime Daily News columnist and a lifelong Brooklynite, is the senior editor at the newsroom The City, a Moynihan Public Scholar at City College and a co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast.
Josh Greenman
Josh Greenman is the managing editor of Vital City. From 2006 through 2022, he was op-ed editor (and from 2016 through 2022, editorial page editor) at the New York Daily News. Of course he has a Substack. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.
Juan Manuel Benítez
Juan Manuel Benítez is the Professor of Local Journalism at Columbia University. He’s the host of the Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know podcast and the author of this Substack. From 2003 to 2023, he was an anchor/reporter at NY1 News and NY1 Noticias, where he hosted the weekly political show Pura Política. He lives in Manhattan.
Liena Zagare
Liena Zagare is the editor of the Manhattan Institute’s The Bigger Apple, focused on policy and politics in New York City. She’s the founder and publisher of Bklyner, the award-winning local news outlet in Brooklyn, New York. She also founded and in 2011 sold a network of local news sites to AOL’s Patch, where she served as director of special projects. She was previously an investment analyst for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation. Her advocacy for sustainable local news has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She was born in Latvia and lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with her family.
Myles Miller
Myles Miller is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News in New York. He was a reporter for NBC, NY1, and PIX11, and led communications for the FDNY, Accenture, and Meta.
Nicole Gelinas
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. She writes on politics and urban policy. She’s a Chartered Financial Analyst charter-holder and the author of Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back its Streets from the Car, winner of the 2025 Gotham Book Prize. She has published analysis and opinion pieces in the New York Post and Wall Street Journal. She also has a Substack.
