By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-18 01:35:15 | Updated at 2025-03-18 06:01:13
4 hours ago
A once prominent newspaper has been pulled back from the brink after winning over President Donald Trump.
The New York Sun, which nearly shut down for good a few years ago, is seeing a boost in subscriptions and renewed prominence on the back of attention from Trump.
It was a once-prominent newspaper and competitor of the New York Times but slipped into obscurity until being taken over by Dovid Efune four years ago.
Efune pivoted the title's editorial line to the right, allowing it to benefit from the rise of populist movements in the US that are boosting right-wing media ratings.
Trump has praised the outlet's journalism, reposted its articles on his Truth social platform and been spotted holding the print edition in the White House.
'It's not lost on us that the president has taken a lot of interest in the Sun,' Efune told the Financial Times.
'He posts our articles regularly on Truth Social. He sent handwritten notes to our writers... and I certainly think that there is a growing perception, and there's a lot of truth to it, that we are a newspaper that the White House reads and takes seriously,' he told the publication.
The New York Sun currently has around 1 million average monthly online page views and 613,000 unique viewers, according to analytics company Similarweb.
The New York Sun has seen its finances tipped into the black following a recent boost
Its finances have tipped into the black with the help of tens of thousands of paid subscribers.
Efune, 39, said his tactic of putting 'principle over politics and people over party' as well as less criticism of Trump would help boost the paper's popularity.
'To be clear we firmly maintain our independence and have come out on different sides than the White House has on a number of issues... editors take editorial positions on the basis of principle,' Efune explained.
It comes as the new administration has removed certain publications seen to be critical of Trump from the White House pool of reporters.
The British publisher has made efforts to push the New York Sun's reporting beyond city events in to covering Washington as well as Europe and Israel.
Efune is an outspoken supporter of Israel and began his career at the conservative Jewish paper The Algemeiner Journal.
He came to prominence after entering the bidding race for the British newspaper The Telegraph but the proposed deal appears to have stalled, according the the Financial Times.
The New York Sun was founded in 1833 as one of the city's first penny papers credited with bringing news consumption to the working classes.
Dovid Efune bought the publication four years ago and it has since grabbed Trump's attention
In 1950 the paper folded into the New York World Telegram and the title was dormant until it was resurrected in 2002.
The publication was made in to a conservative-leaning broadsheet by new owner Seth Lipsky.
Efune is now attempting to bring the paper back from the precipice of oblivion to its former glory.
'The valley of death might be longer and deeper than for other enterprises, but to have passed out of that... and very much on the front foot as a strong, viable, long-term journalistic enterprise is very exciting,' he told the Financial Times.
