Add The New York Post on Google She’s a PR princess.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s influencer army is led by the scion of a public relations empire — who obliviously defended her shady Signal chats by slamming the “legacy press” and its wealthy owners Friday.
City Hall’s head of New Media Emilia Winter Rowland’s grandfather appears to have founded The Rowland Agency, a powerhouse PR firm. Both of her parents work in the field, while her 100-year-old grandmother Joan Rowland lives in a $32 million condo near Billionaires’ Row, public records show.
The 31-year-old nepo baby, who makes $175,000 a year spoon-feeding talking points to Mamdani-loving online personalities, nonetheless railed against old media and the rich alike amid an ongoing furor over her propaganda pipeline.
“At a moment of profound distrust in politics, our job is not to preserve decades-old communications norms or protect the gatekeepers who once controlled access to public information,” she posted on X.
“The monopolization of the media has resulted in legacy press hemorrhaging readers and viewers, essential reporting often locked behind paywalls, and ownership increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of wealthy corporations and billionaires who exert their own editorial agendas over the news.”
The remarks were first made to The New York Times in a report providing a smattering of new details about the “NYC Creators Announcements” group chat Rowland oversees on the encrypted messaging app Signal, first unearthed by the Columbia Journalism Review earlier this week.
Rowland, whose title is director of new media and cultural communications, joined Mamdani’s administration after wrangling influencers for the fresh-faced socialist’s mayoral campaign in 2025.
She previously worked for the Democratic National Committee and as press secretary for Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman’s 2022 campaign, her LinkedIn states.
Working in PR is a family business of sorts for Rowland, who didn’t return calls from The Post on Friday.
Her grandfather appears to be Herb Rowland, who founded The Rowland Company, which grew to the fifth-biggest independent PR firm before its 1985 acquisition by Saatchi & Saatchi, a behemoth London-based advertising agency, according to a New York Times report.
Emilia Rowland’s father Daryl Rowland worked as a TV writer for series such as the 1990s NBC sitcom “Mad About You” and as a blogger for The Huffington Post, his LinkedIn states.
Daryl Rowland currently heads the Rowland Consulting branding and marketing firm.
Emilia Rowland’s mother, Lisa DeBenedictis, likewise worked in TV. Her LinkedIn states she currently works in consulting and as a writer.
And her grandmother Joan Rowland lives on Central Park South in a eight-figure condo, records show.
Emilia Rowland’s work for Mamdani appears to be a key role in maintaining his relevancy on social media.
The Signal group chat Rowland reportedly heads doles out press releases and talking points to about 250 influencers, who blitz social media with favorable, suspiciously similar content about Mamdani and his administration.
The Times report revealed that Rowland also maintains smaller Signal chats with content creators, such as one that targets parenting influencers.
At least one chat was set to automatically erase messages, The Times reported — a potential violation of a state record-keeping law that aims to preserve the communications by taxpayer-funded public officials.
City Hall repeatedly ignored questions about the secret list of pro-Mamdani content creators and went into full damage control on social media trying to brush off the propaganda peddling.
Press Secretary Dora Pekec whined on X about the “absurdity of this faux-scandal” claiming City Hall had merely shared press releases, pointing to an example that went out to both traditional reporters and influencers.
Everyday New Yorkers, though, will never be able to prove Pekec’s claims, because the chat had apparently been deleted. A Post reporter who spent days directly pressing Pekec for answer did so again Friday, this time on the supposed bastion of transparency — social media — where she still ignored inquires.
If such a nothing-burger, why won’t your office answer basic qs:Who is on this list?How were they selected and vetted?Why were messages deleted?Who approved the use of signal without archiving?How much has the city paid influencers?How many other encrypted chats are there?
Anna Bahr, the mayor’s communications director and Rowland’s boss, also defended tapping influencers and completely sidestepped questions over transparency.
“The way people get their news has changed! Government comms has to reflect that,” she posted on X. “Anything else would be irresponsible.”
But not everyone was buying the admin’s spin.
“Look I like Mamdani but the contention that they’re more interested in working with influencers than journalists because the corporate media is too monopolized and paywalled or whatever is just obviously bad faith and presumes the public are idiots,” reporter Jacob Fuller posted on X.
