You may have read in this article in the New York Observer that Conrad Black (the Canadian facsimile of Rupert Murdoch) and some other investors are putting up money for a new New York City daily that’s going to go by the name of the New York Sun.
The new neo-con-ish paper is going to be edited by Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll (the guy who runs smartertimes.com), which is all to the good since these are two sharp, exciting (and in Ira’s case, young) editor/writers. I mean, after all, I’m always up for a new conservative New York daily that might be willing to let me write token-lib columns — after all, that’s how I make part of my living.
The only problem I see is this: the Observer says the “group of investors including Mr. Black intends to spend up to $15 million to launch” the new paper.
To which I can only say: are you kidding?
Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see this thing succeed. But $15 million sounds like chump change to me. I mean, not to divulge any secrets or anything. But I was once involved in a much, much, much smaller venture and we got … well, let’s say a similar amount of money to take the thing bi-monthly. Now we had this small matter of having virtually no advertising and … well, look, I just can’t get into all this. But the point is this: if you’re talking about a real daily paper and not just a novelty sheet, “up to $15 million” sounds pretty thin to me.
Not to mention the fact that the newspaper and magazine publishing biz is already in terrible shape.
