Oh The Daily! Rupert Murdoch’s Sisyphean battle with the impassable forces of the Internet really reminds me of those humans playing Watson on Jeopardy. It’s really hard to figure out who to root for. Well this week, New York Magazine made that decision a little bit easier for us, leaking The Daily EIC Jesse Angelo’s ridiculous motivational memo to staffers of Murdoch’s nascent iPad-only offering. Of course bloggers had a field day.
The memo (included below) is absurd for a variety of reasons but namely because it demonstrates a complete editorial disconnect with today’s online media ecosystem as well as a lack of understanding on Angelo’s part of the types of stuff people actually want to read on a tablet. Read: breaking news.
Plus the “Folks, Egypt is over – time for us to get focus on America” line is real class. Stephen Colbert, who was on fire tonight, rips the whole thing apart above. My favorite line? “If you really want to call yourself a journalist you roll up your sleeves, hit the streets and find the richest dog in South Dakota.”
New media is sad, but old media is sadder.
Subject: The News
Folks, Egypt is over – time for us to get focused on covering America.
We need to get out there and start finding more compelling stories from around the country – not just scraping the web and the wires, but getting out on the ground and reporting. Find me an amazing human story at a trial the rest of the media is missing. Find me a school district where the battle over reform is being fought and tell the human tales. Find a town that is going to be unincorporated because it’s broke. Find me a story of corruption and malfeasance in a state capitol that no one has found. Find me something new, different, exclusive and awesome. Find me the oldest dog in America, or the richest man in South Dakota. Force the new White House press secretary to download The Daily for the first time because everyone at the gaggle is asking about a story we broke. Get in front of a story and make it ours – force the rest of the media to follow us.
It’s good stories that will keep people coming back to The Daily – we’ve assembled a crack news team, so let’s show the world what we can do.
Memo via New York Magazine
News Corp is the world’s largest media conglomerate company. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers and information services; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America. Fox Interactive Media (FIM) oversees News Corporation’s Internet business operations. News Corp’s subsidiaries include: MySpace Slingshot Labs WSJ.com
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