Who Will Save the Sun?
I often disagree with the editorial page of the New York Sun, but I still think it’s a great paper with one of the country’s best arts sections. So I’ve been rather worried about the prospect of it shutting down operations at the end of the month if it doesn’t find new funding.
Let me just ask what’s probably an obvious question: Isn’t this a job for Sheldon Adelson? If you don’t know much about Adelson, the best place to start is this recent New Yorker profile. But the short version is that Adelson, one of the richest men in America, has, for the past few years, been pouring huge sums of money into influencing American politics on a variety of fronts, always from a from a pro-GOP perspective, with a primary focus on its Middle East policies. He was (and may still be) the primary financial backer of Freedom’s Watch, an organization most famous for the ads it ran last fall urging continued support of the Iraq War. In other words, Adelson’s politics line up quite well with the Sun’s, and he’s clearly looking for a broad platform from which to influence American political discussion. The Sun isn’t cheap to operate, but from what I hear, it would be well within his reach, and it would provide him with exactly the sort of outlet he seems to be looking for. So how about it, Sheldon: Will you save the Sun?
I don’t mean to scold, Peter, but I think this is a good illustration of the double standard that exists concerning conservative and liberal bias in the media. If I was going around advocating George Soros buy an ostensibly non-partisan paper like the Sun, it would be more of the pernicious liberal bias that taints America’s media. But it’s just generally understood that there is a conservative media, and that this is a natural and good thing. But there’s far less bellyaching about that then about the supposed hand of liberal bias everyone in the media.
(On a related front, the Weekly Standard‘s complaints about MSNBC are pretty funny in a nation that has Fox and Headline News.)
— Freddie · Sep 22, 05:20 PM · #
By far the best part of the Sun is its arts coverage. How much would it cost to buy that?
— Noah Millman · Sep 22, 05:56 PM · #
Freddie, if George Soros wants to save the Sun, I’ll applaud him. I’d probably do it even if he warned that there’d be severe changes on the editorial page. Somehow, though, I don’t think a Soros-_Sun_ match would really work.
If the American Prospect were failing, I’d have written a post asking why Soros wasn’t stepping in to save it.
Basically, I just want to find ways to fund journalism — and interested parties like Adelson seem like a good way to do that.
This isn’t partisanship my part; rather, I’d say it’s almost pure self interest. I like reading journalism. I like writing and getting paid for it. I like knowing journalists, and I like it when my friends and acquaintances get paid to write rather than be PR flacks, or office managers, or brilliant but unemployed bums. I could make an argument about the value of a free press or whatever, and I might even believe it, but mostly, I’m in favor of journalism, especially good journalism, and against the collapse of places that employee journalists.
— Peter Suderman · Sep 22, 06:06 PM · #
Oh, why not, let’s have this fight.
Freddie, the problem isn’t that there is a liberal media; it’s that there is a liberal media that believes itself to be non-partisan and presents itself as such. I remember there was a brouhaha a few years ago when a survey of voter registration (or possibly campaign contributions, can’t quite recall) in the media came out, and it was of course heavily tilted towards Democrats. The instructive thing, as I recall, was that there was then much advocacy in the media for its members to hide their party affiliation, as though the blatant partisan tilt were an embarrassment. Really though, if we are going to have a mature relationship with the media, party registration should be more public. Emblazon it on the masthead, if need be.
Another example: I am no fan of Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly, but we know their business. The whole point of their shows is partisan commentary. And I believe that because they are in the commentary business, Fox would never get these guys, say, monitor televised debates. Yet NBC allows Keith Olberman, whom I think you would grant is a left-wing Hannity, to do just that. This can only come from an institution that doesn’t see its partisanship as partisanship, which for a major network is terribly dysfunctional.
— Blar · Sep 22, 10:31 PM · #
Freddie, the reason people think that a conservative media is a good and natural thing, or at least don’t harp on it as much, is because everybody takes what it says to be biased and skewed anyhow, so they don’t hold it to as high of a standard. The perceived liberal bias of the MSM is an issue people take more seriously because it’s a more legitimate news source, and people consequently value it differently, and value it more.
— bcg · Sep 22, 10:35 PM · #
The Sun is a disgusting 5th columnist propaganda organ, it can’t die soon enough for the United States’s health as a country.
— ossicle · Sep 22, 11:51 PM · #
Another example: I am no fan of Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly, but we know their business. The whole point of their shows is partisan commentary.
I find that interesting, because the party line from Fox News (fair and balanced) and movement conservatism is that Fox is not biased, it just appears that way in relation to the liberal media.
— Freddie · Sep 23, 12:52 AM · #
When I saw the title “Who Will Save the Sun?” I was expecting something much more grandiose, but you’re right, that’s something worthy of note.
Unrelatedly, the link to the New Yorker profile you mentioned is actually a link to his Wikipedia page, which is instructive but not exactly the same thing.
— PEG · Sep 23, 09:59 AM · #
Freddie, your observation is only interesting if you lump Hannity and O’Reilly in with Brit Hume and Shepard Smith. I don’t make the mistake of lumping Chris Matthews and Ted Koppel.
— Blar · Sep 23, 04:05 PM · #
PEG — fixed the link!
— Peter Suderman · Sep 24, 05:59 AM · #