Sewell Chan

The City Room's post authored by Sewell Chan on the death of Heath Ledger has reached 1.78 million page views, a spokeswoman said. The Times can't confirm if it's an all-time record for an nytimes.com blog post, but it's probably awfully close.  read more »

Eliot Spitzer said earlier today he wants the MTA to keep the base transit fare at $2, but as reported, his plan leaves the door open for increases on other types of fares (like unlimited).

Spitzer announced that the state has found $220 million to help plug the MTA’s budget gap, a figure reported earlier as higher.

In other words, as an interested reader explained it to me, “Something has to go up because they’re not matching what they said has to go up. So, logically, unlimited rides go up, or tolling and Long Island Rail Road and Metro North go up.”

UPDATE: A helpful reader sent me an audio clip of the governor's remarks this morning, where he said he asked the MTA officials to "Come back with a proposal that has a significantly reduced increase in any of the other components from the 6.5 percent that had been discussed over the period of the hearings over the past number of weeks."

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 »