The New York Sun takes today the first step of its return as a daily national newspaper. Our aim is to cover America and the world in a consequential, straightforward, and lively way, guided by principles for which the Sun has stood since 1833. We will aspire to “speak out,” as the Sun once put it, “the sentiment of the people” and to live up to the Sun’s motto, “It Shines for All.”We begin this journey with a sense of humility. There are some fine newspapers in America. Yet our step is quickened by our sense that newspapering, writ large, is in a crisis. Surveys show that public confidence in the press has ebbed to historic lows, halving since polling began in 1972. Many Americans feel a profound sense of betrayal by the press — and a distance from it that the Sun has worked from its earliest days to bridge.The Sun launched as the first penny daily, accessible to everyone. Soon it introduced the first paperboys. Its engagement changed the face of modern newspapering. It pioneered news syndication, human interest stories, personal ads, crime reporting, fashion coverage, and front-page headlines. The Associated Press was established in its newsroom. It invented double-sided newspaper printing. It became the most read newspaper in the world. The Sun also led the way in the positions it championed in its editorial pages, standing on the right side of history at most every critical juncture. It ran its first abolitionist editorial on its fourth day in print, decades before emancipation. It backed Lincoln during the Civil War and defended the Union. In 1875 it hired Emily Verdery Battey, the first female reporter in American journalism. The Sun gave José Martí an office in its newsrooms and flew the flag of Free Cuba over lower Broadway in New York City.The strategy of the Sun will be to hew to its time-tested traditions. For generations the Sun has stood for principle over politics and people over party. Its loyalties are to Americans and American values, putting front and center the idea of equality under the law and the United States Constitution. Through good times and bad, it has never wavered. It is a newspaper for this very moment.What are the principles of the Sun? The Sun stands with the Stars and Stripes. “An American who thinks another country is better than this should not go into journalism,” said the Sun’s famed 19th century editor, Charles A. Dana.The Sun is independent. “It wears the livery of no party,” is how Dana put it. It maintains what its current editor, Seth Lipsky, has called “a willingness to stand apart.”The Sun eschews cynicism. We prefer the teaching of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, that darkness is best countered with light, falsehood with truth. The Sun opposes what its one-time publisher, Thomas W. Dewart, called “indecency and rascality, public and private” and, we would add, the practice of “cancellation” that has become so rampant in our culture today. The Sun will acknowledge the positions of others. “Fight for your opinions, but do not believe they contain the whole truth or the only truth,” said Dana. The Sun will look out for the weak and defenseless. Sun biographer Frank Michael O’Brien wrote of the Sun’s “proper consideration for the feelings of the innocent bystander.” The Sun is an optimist. We believe, in the words of Dana, that “humanity is advancing; that there is progress in human life and human affairs.”The Sun has maintained that optimism even in defeat, as when, in 2008, the Sun ended its print run with an editorial expressing the hope that “some day in the future” a “new generation of newspapermen and women” would “pick up the flag” of the Sun. That is the hope we seek to fulfill in our work ahead, believing that we are reviving the spirit of newspapering that a silent majority of Americans have been eagerly awaiting.We’ve seen many announce their departures from traditional news consumption. Now, we present an opportunity for readers to participate in building a meaningful alternative. We invite you to join us in this adventure — to become a Sun Reader, a Sun Member, or even a Sun Founder. Embrace the warm rays of the dawning Sun today and help dispel the dark clouds of distrust that loom over our democracy.
