new video loaded: How a New York Politics Reporter Sets Priorities

transcript

Back

transcript

How a New York Politics Reporter Sets PrioritiesNicholas Fandos explains how he navigates coverage of the primary races this month and what he’s watching in New York politics.

Because there’s always more races and candidates than we can cover, we try to prioritize the ones that give us a window into something bigger that’s happening. I’m Nick Fandos and I write about government, politics and elections in New York. We’re always trying to get a whole picture of what entanglements or conflicts or priorities candidates might bring, but that can be very different for somebody who has spent a career in local government and has developed a real record over the years. Or somebody who has not been in government before, and maybe we’re looking at their business career or trying to understand: What does their campaign look like? In New York City this month, we’re in the middle of an unusual number of competitive congressional primaries. So, a good example of a candidate that we looked into, who had not been in office before, is Jack Schlossberg. He’s the only grandson of John F. Kennedy. We, like a lot of voters, had questions about who is this guy? What would he be like as a member of Congress? Our job is not to set out with some end goal. I followed the reporting. I listened to people that I trust. I verified the information and put together a picture that would give voters the information that they needed about Schlossberg’s readiness for office. As a reporter, I don’t make contributions to political campaigns. I don’t advocate for causes. And it may sound a little bit corny, but as a New Yorker and a journalist, I also think it’s my job to report in an unbiased way to give a sense of where American politics may be going.

Nicholas Fandos explains how he navigates coverage of the primary races this month and what he’s watching in New York politics.

By Nicholas Fandos, Jillian Eugenios, Megan DiTrolio, Santiago García Muñoz, Mike Abrams and Patrick Healy

June 20, 2026