The New York Sun is folding today. The colourful Right Wing daily was launched six years ago and took the name of an old New York newspaper that went out of business in the Fifties.
The paper opened bureaus in Los Angeles and Washington DC and sent reporters to cover the war in Iraq. At one stage it boasted that every day it had 150,000 of New York’s most influential readers.
In actual fact only about 14,000 paid for their copies, the rest were given away. As as a result The Sun lost a lot of money, as much, perhaps, as a million dollars a month.
Although at the start The Sun had many deep-pocketed investors (including Conrad Black) it had problems finding new financing.
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For weeks there were rumours the paper was on the verge of folding. Other papers ran stories headlined inevitably: “The Sun is Setting”. For days the paper’s response was “We are still fighting”.
Ultimately editor-in-chief (and one of the co-founders) Seth Lipsky last night called in the staff and admitted the clock had run out and announced that today’s paper would be the last. More than 100 staff will lose their jobs. Only a small “shutdown” team will be in today to clean out desks.
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