Municipal government in the modern age is government by expertise: the distinct, interlocking zones of importance — enforcement, finance, education, transportation —are bureaucracies peopled by specialists that have mastered the public-policy language that grounds their agendas, and lends the agents an air of authority that few outsiders can question.
Municipal politics, alternatively, are a politics of familiarity; they are dominated by provisional consortiums with pointed, occasionally non-competing agendas, who see in each other a means to coalition-building, policy implementation and institutional strength.
Political campaigns in municipalities are a synthesis of these two dynamics: teams of specialists surrounding an interior — often unseen — circle of agenda-driven supporters and contributors, which in turn surround the candidate and his closest advisors.
In the largest and most complex of American cities — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and of course, New York — the factor of media scrutiny pressurizes these fundamentals by at least an order of magnitude. Every choice or decision brings with it a corresponding degree of controversy. In these cities, controversy becomes an inescapable element of governance; it’s something to be preempted, and to the extent possible, controlled.
Stated differently, controversy is something that any high-profile public servant must be able to manage — and manage effectively. This is no peripheral matter. In fact, one could reasonably argue that the success of any administration — and the prospect of its multi-term continuity — ultimately turns on its ability to manage controversy, and thus its capacity to protect the public image of its leader. In our current New York, these responsibilities are borne most accountably by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s press secretary, Edward Skyler, and his team of six deputies.
Jennifer Falk, a poised and confidently attractive brunette, is one of those deputies — the Deputy Press Secretary for Economic Development, Business Press, and Jewish Relations in the Bloomberg Administration. The latter responsibility, she confides, stems from her fluency in Yiddish and her own orthodox upbringing on New York’s Upper West Side; the former two come as a result of her having requested the assignment. Interestingly enough, the circumstances surrounding her professional appointments — a sense of duty linked to personal interest and ambition — are a textbook microcosm of the forces that have long motivated privileged Americans to enter public service. Judging purely from her disciplined appearance and effortless self-possession, this current role is preparation for grander plans.
Ms. Falk’s path to this position doesn’t seem to be at all conventional. How a religion major winds up handling press for the city’s Children’s Services Agency is either a comment on resourcefulness, connectedness, or sheer luck. And though the truths to which she was exposed finally become too much to bear — “that job just ultimately overwhelmed me,” she remembers — the nature of the work stimulated her to such a degree that she found herself accepting a similar position with the Bloomberg administration soon after leaving. Evidently a “baptism by fire,” as she describes her early time with the agency, can sometimes be followed by the balm of enlightenment.
As a press liaison for an elected official, she’s responsible for finding artful and persuasive ways of aligning the agenda of the administration with the best interests of the city at large — a job that is surely more challenging than it may sound. And though she says her efforts are aided by the fact that the mayor’s self-funded campaign spared him the obligations that typically come with fundraising, she does reveal (albeit implicitly, and perhaps unintentionally) that his exemption from politics-as-usual — Michael Bloomberg is the only mayor since the days of Tammany Hall that has never previously held an elected or appointed office — carries a heavy cost of its own.
“The press really drives what the mayor’s office does,” Ms. Falk offers with a candor that seems characteristic, “such is the nature of our society.” A sobering if somewhat overstated notion which, if true, reveals that this mayor has no real penchant for public leadership — and that cannot bode well for the city if we’re confronted with another crisis.
Having earned the trust of her supervisor, Ms. Falk — not unlike the other deputies, she admits — is granted a considerable measure of autonomy in crafting the office’s press releases to the city’s multitude of newspapers. And given the biting edginess of some of her past official statements, it’s a freedom that she relishes — which isn’t entirely surprisingly, seeing as freedom is a rare commodity in her life. What little leisure time she’s accorded is spent with her family or cycling long-distance on weekends. But these are sacrifices she seems perfectly happy to make. And with a job as meaningful as hers, it isn’t very difficult to appreciate why.
This editorial originally appeared in an NYU student publication.
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