Gatekeeper behind Mamdanis secret influencer army is scion of PR empire but bashes legacy press in defense of shadowy chats

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 Th...