The front page is certainly intriguing. The sweetly antique masthead logo (exhumed from the original Sun, last published in 1952) is bookended by two illustrations flagging up a review of a fat-free brownie and an article on "breastfeeding boutique" the Upper Breast Side. And while we were promised much more of a New York slant than the now-national New York Times, the NY stories on the front -- Bloomberg’s welfare reform, rent control and liquor laws -- are quirkily balanced with Peggy Noonan's profile of Lech Walesa, the discovery of the world's largest ant colony on the Mediterranean coast and a surreally long obituary of the metal Rolodex.
Overall, there's a surprising lack of business news, with the only real example being a round-up of the Fed’s Q1 on page 12. (Maybe this explains the Wall Street Journal's full-page ad on the back?) We were promised between 12 and 18 pages and in the end my 50 cents was rewarded by the full 18.
Inevitably, because of its adopted heritage, there's a touching recidivism to the old Sun -- albeit metered with a frat-mag/yearbook feel. An editorial which ends with the manifesto, "We … will strive to live up to the standards set by an earlier generation" is headlined "What we're smoking". (A question apparently asked of the writer by Mayor Bloomberg, who's a fine one to talk, if you've seen the cannabis stories.)
Coverage of "Hizzoner", as the mayor is known here, as well as a rent-control story and other such New York-centric pieces, is decidedly conservative-biased, despite promises that only the editorials would be so. So while New Yorkers do indeed now have parish news neatly rounded up in a pretty paper with clever words, they'd be minded not to recite the stories verbatim over a martini south of 23rd Street that evening, such as is relatively safe to do with New York Times stories.
The Upper East Side-club feel continues with the yearbook-style array of ads, largely from "friends". Among which are a blurry quarter-page from the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, full pages from the Empire State Building, the United Teachers Federation and Miramax, and a little 1/9th page slot from Alan, Nina and Liz Stoll reading, "May The Sun shine brightly with 'our Son' [managing editor Ira Stoll] for many years to come."
One can only imagine Stoll’s embarrassment, being a somewhat humorless character, according to PR Week's media reporter James Burnett, who met him at a party recently. Burnett asked how the launch was going and heard a tirade about Verizon not plugging the phones in yet.
Which is about as New York as you can get.
Eleanor Trickett is the deputy editor of PRWeek US
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
