THE SUN'LL COME OUT TOMORROW :

Who Is Roger Hertog? : He's starting up a long-shot New York daily and funding The New Republic. But Hertog doesn't see himself as the vanguard of a new conservative movement -- yet. (Michael Tomasky, American Prospect)

[Seth Lipsky] chose the name Sun because the old Sun, whose most famous nineteenth-century editor was abolitionist Charles A. Dana, had, in Lipsky's view, high standards and a clear sense of mission. In the new Sun, which will publish five days a week, Lipsky hopes to bring that clarity to bear on a city that he believes still labors under the oppressive legacy of decades of liberal turpitude. "I don't feel that the crisis is over in New York," he said. "I don't feel it came upon this city with the attack on the World Trade Center, and I don't feel that it's over." Added managing editor Ira Stoll: "The debate is so skewed here. Where's the voice that's saying we need further reductions in taxes? Where's the voice that's saying we need to continue to take a hard look at rent control?"

Well, it's here. Hertog put up the initial money for the business plan; Steinhardt and the other investors, who include Conrad Black, a conservative Canadian press baron, came later. Hertog says all will be well if the paper has a circulation of 30,000 after a year. No one will talk money too specifically, of course, but one gets the sense that this is no Washington Times, drinking from a bottomless well of resources. The Sun's editorial operation is shoestring; its news-gathering staff numbers 10, including Lipsky and Stoll. Lipsky says he sees no point in "being a success d'estime without making a profit." The suggestion is that the circulation target is rather firm.

Watching to see whether the paper hits that mark should be fascinating business. New York does not, of course, lack for a conservative voice; the New York Post sees to that. But the Post's conservatism is suffused with the kinds of confused elements one might expect to find when servants (the editors) attempt to anticipate the whims of the master (Rupert Murdoch). Sometimes it's principled, sometimes it's knee-jerk. Other times it's nativist. Periodically it's tarted up with too much T & A. Overall it's more clearly consistent about what it doesn't approve of than what it does. One can expect, by contrast, that Lipsky and Stoll's Sun will be crystal clear about what it wants. It'll be the voice of this velvet conservatism, particularly on the domestic issues about which it's passionate, most of which are also urban: vouchers; education standards; sclerotic municipal unions; the accumulated state, local, and federal tax burden; and crime. These issues constitute the "crisis" to which Lipsky refers. He reckons himself its Paine and has a year to make 30,000 other people reckon likewise.

Readers of the fabulous Smarter Times have eagerly been awaiting the rising of the Sun for months now. It promises to offer, however temporarily, a distinctive and different take on the news from New York's other papers, but especially from the Times.

The Brothers are of the opinion that America is ill served by the supposed impartiality of its major media. No serious observer actually believes that the NY Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. are neutral reporters of the news. The shared societal pretense that they are is deeply dishonest. It is absurd to believe that institutions where 80-90% of the reporters and editors vote Democrat can turn around and cover politics and culture fairly. This kind of ideological uniformity must, if nothing else, create a kind of echo chamber effect, where stories and issues get filtered through the only perspective available to them. Such outlets should just be honest with their audiences, acknowledge their Left partisanship, and let viewers/readers understand that the interpretation of the news being presented is just that, an interpretation, and one that is influenced by the politics of the interpreters.

It will then be incumbent on the Right to start providing the alternative interpretation--as is currently done only by the Washington Times and FOX News. FOX in particular has demonstrated the existence of a significant audience of conservative consumers starving for a more conservative product from the media. For obvious reasons the folks at FOX continue to refer to themselves as "fair and balanced", and, indeed, in an industry where the news is consistently presented with a liberal slant, to offer a more conservative one may well be to provide "balance". But FOX too should wear its politics on its sleeve. It is after all no coincidence that many of us could only watch the Florida debacle in 2000 unfold on FOX--it was because we knew we'd be more likely to hear what we wanted to hear there. Meanwhile, Democrats watched CNN for the same reason, though FOX and CNN viewers expected to hear diametrically opposed stories.

So we welcome the Sun, though we doubt its viability under current conditions, and hope that it is in the vanguard of a trend that will see greater and more open diversity in the political orientation of the press.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 15, 2002 9:17 AM