The Sun is supposed to be a smart read for wealthy, conservative New Yorkers, 12 pages of only the most important items. Things like sports sections are better left to more plebian venues, like the Times or the Post. So what's with the occasional sports blitzes? Not for the first time, the paper ran almost a full page of articles on local teams; coverage of last night's Mets, Nets and Yankees games share the page with an ad for advertising in the Sun (the premise of which Smarternysun finds dubious: "the fact that you are reading this ad means that other distinguished, affluent, noteworthy, well-educated readers are looking at the same ad," and we wonder whether Streetblimps count as affluent or noteworthy). But all three stories are wire reports — Couldn't the paper afford to send a reporter or two to the games? Or is it too difficult to make it out to Queens or the Meadowlands? (you'll recall that the Sun couldn't even get a reporter up to Chelsea to cover a building explosion.) Or is it, just possibly, that the articles are filler material? We'll let you decide.

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Clearly, the Sun would rather launch ad hominem attacks than deal with real issues. Just look at today's front page. The above-the-fold article, "Rabbi, Wife Accused of Fraud" — with subhead "State Dismisses a Police Liaison After Report Cites Double Billing" — reports how a prominent Brooklyn rabbi and liaison between the city and the Jewish community defrauded the city of thousands of dollars in trips to Albany. The schizophrenic story seems warily self-conscious of its ad hominem tone, as it spends an expanded third paragraph listing rabbi Edgar Gluck's accomplishments like a CV, as if his participation in a commission for US Heritage abroad was relevant to the story. As to finding out more than what's contained in the inspector general's report it's based on, that's for other newspapers. The story — by William F. Hammond, the Sun's ace Albany reporter — is almost, to the word, a reciting of the report, and it contains only a little original reporting, with little news value.

It's too bad the Sun didn't use the space for some real news. The Page 3 story by R.H. Sager touches on a real issue, though it too is underreported. The story, "Schumer Wants Nuke Sensors To Catch Smuggled Bombs" (the subhead is a better indicator: "Senator Warns New York Is 'Totally Unprotected,' 'Most Vulnerable'") could have real repercussions for New York's port economy and safety. These are two of the Sun's hot topics — economy and security — but the subject doesn't get a decent treatment. The story covers a press conference by Sen. Chuck Schumer (Dem.-NY) on a Hudson River pier, but that's pretty much it. Sager doesn't quote anybody from the industry, any shippers who might be affected by stricter cargo inspections, any expert on the city's port economy or any other lawmaker (Schumer's counterpart in the House, Rep. Jerry Nadler (Dem.-NY), would have been ideal — he has long advocated exactly what Schumer's press conference called for). In fact, the only person quoted in the story is Schumer himself, and only from his Hudson pier press conference. The article might as well be a press release. It makes Smarternysun wonder where the Sun's news priorities are.

Maybe that's why one of the Sun's few seasoned and savvy reporters, Seth Mnookin, is leaving for greener pastures before the end of the month.

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QUA-LINE MANIA: Once again, the Sun has utterly confused us with its byline attributions; for a paper fielding only a handful of reporters, there's a suspiciously large variety. What distinguishes a "Staff Reporter of the Sun" (Benjamin Smith's article under the lead today) from a story by "Special to the Sun" (Jason Kaufman's top-of-the page story about MoMA) from the (otherwise unnamed) "Staff Reporter of the Sun," which more often than not seems to mean a rehash of one or two press releases? The only thing that's for sure are the qua-lines "The Daily Telegraph," "The Jerusalem Post" and the "Associated Press," which come in no shortage in the Sun's pages.