In the annals of newspapering, journalists see their independence as their biggest asset. The best newspapers (and usually even the worst) can take a story and find a fresh angle, rather than letting its sources dictate its position. Not so, it seems, at the Sun.

Today's front page runs two articles that, as has become par for the course at the paper, might as well be press releases. The first is Rachel Donadio's lead, "Cultural Groups Warning of Danger of Budget Cuts" (a little clunky, no?); the second is a just-above-the-fold plug for one of the Sun's pet projects (what media critics call "advocacy journalism"), "Drive to Isolate PLO Gains Some Ground in Both City, State," by Staff Reporter of the Sun, who Smarternysun predicts will step up his/her efforts now that ace journo Seth Mnookin is headed for greener pastures.

Neither story quotes anything resembling an opposition to the story's newsmaker until late in the story, ensuring that anything but the most thorough readers get anything like a balanced perspective. Donadio's story, which cites "Museums, Gardens, Auditoria" [sic] in the subhead, discusses how some of New York's cultural institutions will suffer under Mayor Bloomberg budget cuts. Unfortunately, she borrows her angle whole hog from the Cultural Institutions Group, which represents the endangered organizations, rather than putting together different sides of the budget debate, rather than blocking any source from having its own agenda dominate the news. The story bemoans the inevitable decline in tourism and visitor services under the new budget constraints, but the Mayor's office is not even allowed to respond until the last paragraph before the jump. Even then, however, the culture commissioner doesn't get to respond to the complaint (something about budget constraints would have made sense here), but to the distribution of the cuts. It's not until the first on the jump that the paper finally addresses the budget problem from the mayor's perspective. Too little, too late.

Staff Reporter's article reports a proposed State legislature resolution to condemn the PLO, which is paralleled by a similar bill in the City Council, to be un-tabled by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller after budget discussions end. The resolution, except in that it expresses support of Israel, has little effect on policy — the Sun is good enough to remind us that New York politicians don't set America's diplomatic agenda. So what's the news? Well, nothing, frankly. The story is just a shoutout; it doesn't quote any opposition (the PLO gets a no comment on the jump) except from the US State Department, for which a spokeswoman says "we don't comment on things we haven't seen or had a chance to absorb." Needless to say, the department — which does not recognize the PLO as a terrorist organization — is less sanguine about uncritical endorsements than the congressmen. Or the Sun, for that matter.

Smarternysun hopes that in the future, when the Sun decides to lend out its front page as a bully pulpit, it will at least attribute the article to the proper writer — the sources themselves.