Today is our last day at Smarter New York Sun, but we didn't want to say goodbye without thanking our raison d'etre for its valuable, daily lessons in how not to run a newspaper. So, without further ado, the list:

a) Don't come out swinging. Just because Lord Black and the Manhattan Institute are feeding you money, don't think that means you can brag about taking on the Times. Lipsky went around telling anyone who would listen that the Sun, with its 12 pages and 15 or so reporters, was going to out-Metro its assumed competitor. No one bought it then, and no one buys it now. Had the Sun started small and unassuming, it might have avoided the virtually unanimous disdain that met it early on. Part of the reason we're hanging it up is that, in all fairness, the Sun is a work in progress. A young, small staff, a lot to cover — mistakes are bound to be made. We understand that. On the other hand, Lipsky and Stoll, swaggering around town the last month claiming they were going to hit the ground running, made such easy, juicy targets that we couldn't resist.

b) Don't make ridiculous claims about your readership. A few weeks ago the Sun claimed to have better-than-expected subscription rates, but failed to mention that many of those were free trials, and that the only numbers that matter are the renewal rates. Unfortunately for them, no one else forgot, and the numbers came across as appropriately laughable.

c) Pick a niche. Good papers know their readers, and they know what they want. But the Sun wants to be all things to too many people; at 12 pages, it can't manage. Not counting the ads, Seth and Ira have 10 pages to cater to: Upper East Side socialites, Bed-Stuy Hassidim, anti-Pataki Republicans, anti-Cuomo Democrats, Times boycotters, animal lovers — the list goes on. As a result, the paper's reporters are spread thin, and ongoing issues that may appeal to one group — say, Jewish/Hispanic tensions in Brooklyn — may go weeks without coverage, simply because Ben Smith can't get out to South Williamsburg. It's not a way to build a readership.

d) Try to be objective. It seems ludicrous to say, but it's equally ludicrous that the Sun makes so little an attempt at journalistic fairness. Lipsky may trot around in a fedora and claim to be a "newspaperman," but this isn't the Forward — if you're going to succeed with a general-interest paper, you've got to understand that general-interest readers expect both sides of the story. When you attack Andrew Cuomo, at least get a comment from him. When you attack China, don't call it "red." All newspapers have biases; that was the premise of Smartertimes, right? But good newspapers learn how to downplay them, or at least cover up them up. Not so the Sun, at least not yet. Intelligent readers will be turned off. Unintelligent readers won't pick it up in the first place.

e) Learn from your mistakes. The Sun hasn't. Not just little things, like the major copy errors that continue to plague the front page (last Monday they forgot the staffline on Rachel Kovner's lead story, this Monday they forgot a wire-story byline completely). It's the big things, like relying on press releases for the bulk of your reporting — April 19's story on the supposed link between Palestinian aid and terrorism had exactly one source, a Zionist Organization of America press release, and yesterday's story on the same topic was largely sourced off a press release from a representative making the same claim. Or like running op-eds on your front page — April 25 ran an Alicia Colon opinion defending the Pope right next to a news story about sexual abuse and the church; Wednesday saw Errol Louis opine on a Manhattan Institute-sponsored talk by John DiIulio, himself a frequent MI contributor. Glaring examples, every one, of bad journalism, yet the Sun persists.

The sad thing is, the Sun has a lot of potential. There are some good writers on staff (Rachel Kovner, for all "Like Father, Like Sun"'s griping, isn't a half-bad reporter). And the city could use a dedicated, local broadsheet that appeals to a less visceral, populist readership than the Daily News or the Post. But that's not a project that can be taken on lightly, or arrogantly. The Sun's shortcomings all revolve around its original sin — ego journalism, fed by money with a clear, manipulative agenda, and a brazen subjectivity that merely makes Ira Stoll's previous role as the Times' self-proclaimed bias checker that much more ironic.

So as we hang up our hats, we're not necessarily sure it's time for the Sun to do the same. It can get better. But on its current tack it has no business — and very little future — in a city known for chewing up and spitting out less-than-satisfactory broadsheets. We can hope that Seth, Ira or someone else over on Chambers Street will see this email and take it to heart. But then again, see above.