A question: Is it better to run with no news, or to run with no news masquerading as big news? We at Smarternysun cast our lots with the former, but the Sun seems to have problems deciding. Today's paper announces that "Mayor Slips into Washington for Fundraiser," but it's not at all clear why this gets Page 1 prominence. Bloomberg, supporting Republicans? What next? The Sun attacking Cuomo? Newcomer Timothy Starks struggles for an angle — "this trip was lower key [than a previous one] but it may also pay off by allowing the mayor to build political capital" — but by the end we're left wondering if this isn't just an example of slow-news-day mayoral gazing. Starks wasn't allowed to attend the event, and wasn't able (or didn't try) to get a scoop on what went on inside. Starks doesn't speculate, but the Sun's editorial page does (Ah, as the Lithuanians say, so that is where the dog is buried). In an exercise so ironic as to bypass the need for air quotes, the paper compares Bloomberg's visit to the Clinton coffee klatsches — as if the boys in the Manhattan Institute never threw a few bucks into the political arena. The paper asks, "Who did the mayor chat with and what did they talk about?" Who cares?

On the other hand, the Sun's Bill "I am a journalist, not an opinion writer" Hammond returns to the news desk by writing about the State Assembly impasse over how much control over the city's education system the mayor should get. And while he's correct to cite the rift between the mayor's supporters and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, it's hardly news — the story has been circulating for weeks, even in the pages of the Sun. Hammond could have investigated possible solutions to the impasse, but he clearly wants to lambaste Silver for his strong anti-Bloomberg stance. The only thing new here is the fact that a lawsuit may emerge over the fate of community school boards, which Bloomberg would see eliminated but defenders say are protecting under the Voting Rights Act. Too bad that's an entirely different story; Rachel Kovner's "Rights Act May Foil Reorganization" appears directly below it.

Then there's the small matter of Rachel Donadio's "Charity Board Member Pens Book of 'United Jewish Catastrophes,'" a critique of the non-profit United Jewish Communities. First, it's not a book, but an unpublished manuscript (about which the author, Richard Wexler, says "I don't know if I'm going to publish this). Somehow, the Sun got a copy, and Donadio proceeds to interview everyone involved in the book except, apparently, Wexler himself; needless to say, the article quickly becomes a platform from which the targets of Wexler's critique get to respond. Except, of course, they don't; unwilling to fall into the Sun's trap, they say noncommittal things about the organization and Wexler, and most refuse to comment further "without having read [the book] in its entirety."

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WIRE WATCH: The lead story, "Suicide Bombs Likely in US, FBI Warns," is written by Ron Fournier. But there's no staffline. Is he a new writer? A "Special to the Sun"? Neither. Turn to the jump, look to the very bottom, and you find that he's a reporter for the AP. Hmm. Is this legal? Yes, but ... as Smarternysun noted yesterday, the Sun has a new wire-story policy of putting author names at the top and their respective organizations at the bottom. But the paper didn't do that with yesterday's lead, a possible hint that even Seth and Ira saw this as a not-too-subtle way of making their dependence on wire reports a little more, well, subtle. So why, today, do they put Fournier's name at the top instead? We're left scratching our heads.