Although it is only six years old, the New York Sun finds itself under the threat of shutting down. The rather scrappy and conservative Manhattan daily will go bankrupt if it cannot raise capital by the end of this very month.

NY Sun, which took its name from the storied New York daily of the same name that existed from 1833 to 1950, was launched in April 2002, and it seems that it has been losing money since inception.

The Sun editor, Seth Lipsky, said yesterday that the paper was not profitable, actually a long way from it, even though advertising revenue has risen. The gains simply have been overwhelmed by rising costs. "We have had discussions with a number of newspaper proprietors and other potential investors about possible combinations or investment relationships," Lipsky wrote in a letter to readers published on the paper's website on Wednesday.

This particular paper was never the shining star on the news stands, always outmanned and outgunned by the New York Times and the other major dailies. It did manage, on the other hand, to carve a small niche for itself with arts and political coverage and it was also thought to be a good place to start for young journalists, due to its lively and aspiring atmosphere. Still, the paper publishes five days a week and has a circulation of about 70,000, far lower than the million or so copies that the Times has.

    At one point, in 2003, NY Sun managed to nick The Times when it broke down the news of a historian who questioned the validity of a Pulitzer Prize awarded to The Times in 1932. Even though the famous paper admitted that the work was not prize-worthy, nothing happened to the Pulitzer in their drawer. But this one-time victory will surely not bring the Sun back to life, unless some serious cash is dropped into the paper’s accounts.