We recently got a look at the in-house style guide of The New York Sun. Like many such documents (The New York Times actually publishes its own in book form) it can be taken to offer some insight into the editorial positioning of the publication. We found, among the many entries, the following:

"aliya, not aliyah. Jewish immigration to Israel. Literally 'going up.' Opposite is yerida, the 'going down' of Israeli Jews to live in other countries, like America.

"Avery Fisher Hall: At Lincoln Center."

"Charedi. Literally, trembling. Prefer 'fervently Orthodox' or 'black-hat' to this Hebrew word. Avoid the term 'ultra-Orthodox.'"

"Decter, Midge. The Cold War heroine. Note the spelling of her last name."  read more »

The editors of The New York Sun have started posting stories on their Web site during the day instead of waiting to put them in the next morning’s paper.

A memo sent to staff yesterday by city editor David Lombino said reporters should expect to file early when they’re working on certain kinds of stories. Mr. Lombino said in the memo that news editors will work with new online editor Mike McPhate to choose what will be posted early during their morning meeting.

Previously, wire copy was the only fresh content one could expect to see on the Sun Web site after the day’s stories were uploaded in the early morning hours. In an interview earlier today, managing editor Ira Stoll said he hopes that readers will get in the habit of visiting the site more often when they realize that new local stories, filed by the Sun’s own beat reporters, are being posted there on a regular basis.

Not all stories qualify for this treatment.

“We’re trying to do it more often on non-exclusive stories,” Mr. Stoll said, “like where there’s a press conference with the mayor or the governor at 10 or 11 in the morning and all the other reporters are there. Or if there was a crime that happened the night before and the police have put out a release about it.”

In an interview, Mr. Lombino said that if he’s dealing with “the kind of story that somebody [from another newspaper] can follow up on for the next day’s paper, we’ll probably want to sit on it until we’re confident they’re at home or in bed. It depends on what kind of scoop we’re talking about.”

Mr. Stoll said that “people may write shorter and quicker, and then for the print edition find a different angle or have more thorough reporting.”

Mr. Lombino said he had looked to The New York Times’ “City Room” blog as a reference point; the Times blog is updated frequently with up-to-the-minute metro news.

Mr. Stoll said he had never heard of City Room.

Mr. Lombino’s memo to staff is after the jump.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2007/sun-rise-several-times-daily#comments Style City Room David Lombino Ira Stoll Sewell Chan The New York Sun One SL LLC Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:41:10 -0400 Leon Neyfakh 56930 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/32996 The Village Voice has just named Deborah Kolben, formerly the city editor of the New York Sun, as the paper's managing editor.

Since David Blum, ex-Sun television critic, took over as the Voice's editor-in-chief, there have been several defections from the conservative daily to the lefty weekly. Ms. Kolben now joins Sun alumni Nathan Lee (film critic) and Maggie Shnayerson (PR Director) over at Cooper Square.  read more »

Liberal Jewish Alan Wolfe makes similar points in a piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which he says that "we need in the United States a debate about the future of Israel as robust as the one that routinely takes place within Israel itself."

[I]t is hard to raise them, at least in any probing way, when prominent Hollywood celebrities like Mel Gibson flirt with anti-Semitism, and when newspapers like The New York Sun, a staunch defender of Israel, routinely accuse those who criticize Zionism of being little different from Gibson. It is difficult to know why honest discussions about Israel have become so difficult to conduct. Is it, perhaps, because the rise of the Christian right, no matter how ostensibly supportive of Israel it claims to be, reminds Jews that they live in a Christian country and thereby makes them more likely to circle the wagons?

This is a tired rationalization for passivity. When Wolfe suggests that to criticize Israel means to be lumped with a laughingstock, Mel Gibson, he is writing off the ability of the intellectual to express independent ideas if he chooses to. When he suggests that to criticize Israel is to help Christians oppress Jews, he is self-involved and deluded, offering a Boratish shtetl paranoia about goyische America. Wolfe is a big deal professor and head of a center on religion and public life at an important school. The power structure has long since made room for Jewish wealth, Jewish brains, and Jewish political muscle. The people he is so fearful of are largely outsiders. He ought to focus on Nancy Pelosi, who is an insider. When Pelosi denounces Jimmy Carter and says that the U.S. will stand with Israel forever and there is no such thing as second-class citizenship in occupied territories, she is bowing to a powerful lobby and misrepresenting reality in a way that ought to concern an intellectual more than whatever Mel Gibson said drunk to a cop. Wolfe's muddle is the same muddle that Jewish liberals have been in since the Iraq war. They are against the war, but their critique is blunted because they know that devotion to Israel played a part in the thinking of some of the war planners, but they don't want to talk at all about that because they fear it would result in a pogrom. And so they ascribe all the bad stuff to people they don't know and can easily demonize: the Christian right. Or Halliburton. And thereby fail to do their jobs as intellectual leaders, at a time when the country is in a tremendous foreign-policy crisis.

This is the tragic aspect of Wolfe's muddle. He says we need the robustness of the Israeli discourse here. The Israeli left agrees. It keeps looking to liberals in the U.S. to form an arc of thought to help end the hateful occupation and challenge the racists like Avigdor Lieberman who now have a place in the government there. By looking away from all that and blaming it on the Sun, Wolfe is doing precisely what liberal American Jews have done for a long time now: handed their power to the rightwing Israel lobby.

The New York Sun named six NYC hospitals which may be targeted for closure.

"Would he dare to take on the powerful institutions along, say, Manhattan's Bedpan Alley along First Avenue? Or would he go after small ones with weak boards and poor bank statements?

Mr. Berger was patient with these questions at first, but eventually grew frustrated.

"This is not a closing commission," he said. "The answer is, we understand that it's appropriateness which is important."

Pressed about rumors that he intended to close one major teaching hospital, he answered wryly. "Absolutely! I'm planning to close Presbyterian, Cornell--"

And then he interrupted himself: "Come on! I am not going to talk about any institution." So, which hospitals might be named tomorrow?

Hillary Clinton said yesterday she has evolved on the issue of gay marriage, according to Gay City News. A newly redesigned New York Sun looks at how NJ's gay marriage ruling could affect New York.

Bill Clinton was an albatross in 2000, but is the most sought-after Democratic campaigner today, says the AP.

The City Council could be the second highest-paid legislature in the nation. They also plan to keep the extra pay they get for serving in leadership positions.

In response to a lawsuit forcing the legislature to disclose more information about member items, the Senate Majority Leader explained the real problem. Reporters are "lazy."

And the Republicans are "google bombed" by liberal blogger Chris Bowers.

Hillary Clinton said the public is growing concerned about websites like MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who hosted a fund-raiser for her earlier this year.

During the debate, Cuomo demanded Pirro respond to the letter and said she was currently under investigation by the state attorney general.

In his own debate tomorrow, John Spencer has "little to lose" by aggressively going after Hillary Clinton, The New York Sun reports.

George Pataki has donated $130,000 to candidates outside New York, according to a recent financial filing.

John Faso has finally become the Republican Party standard-bearer, but at an unfortunate time.

And two more people connected to Giuliani's former NYPD Commissioner, Bernie Kerik, were busted.

The Times looks at Eliot Spitzer's long path political stardom, and notes he got 1,590 on his SAT's and a perfect score on his LSAT.

Daniel Freedman of the New York Sun gives a live-blogging-like reaction to news of the Cory Lidle plane crash.

An accident doesn't feel as bad as a terrorist attack, even when it produces the same death toll.

Mike Bloomberg said the FDNY and NYPD responded perfectly to the incident. Planes flying less than 1,5000 feet over the City will now have to file flight plans with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Bob Menendez leads Tom Kean, Jr. 49 to 45 percent, according to today's Quinnipiac poll.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger's rival demands an invitation to the Jay Leno Show.

In preparation for a fund-raiser on Friday, the Republican National Committee sent personal information about donors - including their race - to the Secret Service and, accidentally, to a New York Sun reporter.

The RNC said that it was a mistake for them to have listed "Muslim" as a race, but said that in trying to provide racial information about the donors, they were only following directions from the Secret Service.

Until a year ago, the Secret Service did require race as part of its standard background check for guests at events involving the president. Following complaints, including one from the White House press corps, the practice ended. But the Secret Service requested racial information for Friday's luncheon, a spokesman for the agency, Eric Zahren, said.

This is good news: the issue is getting into the Times, and on front pages elsewhere.

I sense that we're approaching a real political moment; and good for Lieberman for putting the issue on the agenda. Let's have it out. Before long, who knows, maybe Chris Matthews will describe the settlements in the West Bank as what they are, religious apartheid, and Senator Hagel, or Senator Lamont, will ask, What effect these violations of the Geneva Conventions that we support are having on Arab hearts and minds... Am I dreamin'?