That's what Times op-ed editor Andy Rosenthal told a Columbia j-school class last night, Radaronline.com's Ben Chapman reports.

The U2 frontman will write between "six and ten" columns next year, and he's doing it ... pro bono.

Other Rosenthal dish from last night:

• He admires the work of The Atlantic's Megan McArdle and The National Review's Byron York
• "Condoleezza Rice is a particularly bad op-ed writer."
• Tom Wolfe writes too long

An interesting tidbit from The New York Times: U2 is selling a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting that its bassist, Adam Clayton, bought at a New York gallery in 1989. According to Bloomberg, the band is expected to fetch as much as 6 million pounds (that’s $11.7 million) at a Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction in London on July 1. The auction record for a Basquiat work is $14.6 million.

The painting, a 6-foot-square acrylic, oil stick and collage canvas, was completed in 1982 (some reports say 1983) when the artist was 22 years old. He died of a drug overdose in 1988.

“It seems especially appropriate that a work by Basquiat should end up in a music studio, since so much has been said about the relationship between his art and music,” Oliver Barker, of Sotheby's Contemporary Art department, told the BBC. The painting had been hanging in U2’s studio until now.

No word on whether Bono plans to do something philanthropic with the money.

New York suffered a brutal blow to its ego last week when Madonna said she was totally over Manhattan. “It’s not the exciting place it used to be,” the singer said. “It still has great energy; I still put my finger in the socket. But it doesn’t feel alive.”

So when The Observer found a real estate record filed just this morning that said Bono and his wife Ali Hewson had sold their Central Park West apartment, it seemed crushing. Could Madonna and Bono both be abandoning New York in the same short span? No.

According to the $4.9 million deed, the co-op is Bono’s old 2,322-square-foot apartment at the El Dorado at 90th Street and Central Park West.  read more »

U2 lead singer and good-international-causes advocate Bono just left a private meeting with Michael Bloomberg here at City Hall.

A crush of reporters accosted the sunglassed singer, who focused on Bloomberg’s philanthropic potential, and sidestepped the question of whether the billionaire would-be presidential candidate could affect more change in national office.

“He’s a great and gifted manager and I think, you know, he could do an awful lot of good inside, or outside the White House,” Bono said.

On Bloomberg's charitable giving, Bono said, “What he will bring to philanthropy is he will demand results, same way he has in the city. If you’re going to spend some money, you want to see some results for that money.”

He later added, “The world’s poor would be very lucky to have him as an advocate.”

Also: “I think we’re going to end up working together. He’s a very--This is a man of high net worth who pledged to give his money away and who is auditioning the ideas of where that money can be well spent and will be very demanding of results. But what I’m interested in is not just his cash but his intellect and how his business acumen could be used to work for the world’s poor."  read more »

We were intrigued by The Villager's recent item saying that Bono had bought in Julian Schnabel’s Palazzo Chupi on West 11th Street. We can't find any city records of such a purchase. In fact, the only recorded sale in the new condo was one that The Observer noted two weeks ago, and it didn't involve the icon from Ireland, who already owns a place in the San Remo.