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The Daily launches: ‘We must re-imagine our craft’

By Dominic Ponsford

Rupert Murdoch today launched his The Daily iPad newspaper in a bid to “make the business of newsgathering viable again”.

The Daily is said to be backed by a $30m investment from News Corp and is said to have a staff of 100.

Launching it at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, News Corp revealed that The Daily has operating costs of $26m a year and will sell for 99 US cents a week or $39.99 a year. So it needs to attract 650,000 subscribers to break-even on cover-price alone, though considerably less than that figure with advertising income.

News Corp chief executive Murdoch said today: “Simply put, the iPad demands that we completely reimagine our craft. The magic of newspapers and blogs is the element of surprise and the deft touch of a good editor. We must make the business of newsgathering viable again.”

He said: “New times demand new journalism.Our challenge was to take the best of traditonal. journalism – shoe-leather reporting – and combine it with the best of technology.”

The Daily has been developed in conjunction with Apple and features a new “in-app” subscription service which allows readers to “auto-renew”.

A live demo of The Daily was showed off at today’s launch showcasing features including: 360-degree photographs, interactive content and high definition video as well as traditional newspaper staples like horoscopes, weather and crosswords. One innovation is that the app allows readers to record audio as well text comments for a story.

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The sports section can be customised with scores and stats for a reader’s favorite teams and a team’s ‘tweets’ from Twitter can also be integrated.

The Daily will be updated every morning, with further updates possible throughout the day.

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