Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

It seems that all may not be well at The Daily, the newspaper jv between Apple and News International (see blogs passim.)

According to a leaked memo, the editor, Jesse Angelo, has ordered his journalists to bring him more content: specifically of the exclusive kind.

'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.'

Now, in a way this is a bit of a 'dog bites man' story, in that the editor has decided his readers choose his publication because of the quality of its stories.

But it's also a reflection of the double bind in which The Daily finds itself. On the one hand, it's a newspaper about global news online, with a lot of journalists who are interested in stories that interest them.

On the other, it's got a real chance of being America's first national daily. But to do that it's got to get inside America, and find the stories other media aren't finding.

So it needs to do better than network TV news at finding the stories that typify the 'real' America; and better than real-time user-generated media like Twitter at editorialising them and deciding on what really matters.

My money is still on Mr Murdoch and his team working it out, especially as Apple have now announced The Daily will be available through the App store.