New York's Manhattan borough president has launched a campaign targeting Newsmax and seeking its ban in the city's taxicabs.
Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat, announced this week that he is demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani pull Newsmax from the city's taxi TV screens.
Newsmax called the move an "act of pure censorship."
New York City's taxicabs are privately owned. The City issues licenses — called "medallions" — to cab owners.
Last year, Newsmax signed with Curb a deal to provide a one-minute news update hosted by one of the network's anchors to over 15,000 taxis across the country.
Newsmax is ubiquitous on TVs and devices — carried in tens of thousands of hotels, bars, restaurants, commercial centers, and governmental offices nationwide.
Newsmax is also carried by every major cable and satellite provider, reaching about 60 million homes, while its streaming channel Newsmax 2 is available in over 100 millions through apps and OTT systems.
In a Jan. 21 letter to Mamdani and Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Midori Valdivia, Hoylman-Sigal wrote the cabs should not carry Newsmax because of its "politically charged content."
In response, Newsmax said in a statement: "This is a pure act of censorship targeting a news organization reaching over 50 million Americans regularly. Newsmax plays it straight and that drives the far left crazy."
Hoylman-Sigal claimed in the letter, first obtained by the New York Post, that Newsmax "is not a credible news source for New Yorkers."
"I urge you to summarily suspend the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission's partnership with Curb ... and demand that Curb cease its collaboration with Newsmax as a condition of licensure given the platform's history of misinformation and disingenuous reporting," Hoylman-Sigal wrote.
New York's just-elected Democratic Socialist mayor has not publicly responded to Hoylman-Sigal's request as of Friday. City Hall declined to comment when contacted by the Post.
Supporters of Newsmax told the Post that Hoylman-Sigal's demand is simply viewpoint discrimination and censorship.
"This is cancel culture in the free market," Stefano Forte, president of the New York Republican Club, told the Post.
"I know the socialists want to control everything. But this is ridiculous. I don't think anyone is getting indoctrinated by right-wing politics in the back of the cab."
Newsmax launched its cable channel in 2014 and is currently the No. 4 cable news network in the nation, just behind Fox News.
More than 50 million Americans regularly turn to Newsmax, which Forbes says is a "news powerhouse."
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