Murdoch Lays Off Staff

Close to 30 percent of The Daily would be sacked as media mogul Rupert Murdoch tries to reinvent the digital news.

The announcement was made recently over News Corp’s digital newspaper. Launched 18 months ago, The Daily was initially developed for Apple’s iPad although it has also branched out to the Android operating system.

News Corp. has also said that The Daily has about 100,000 paying subscribers but refused to say the actual number. And although it appears that it is doing well, about 50 employees are set the leave the company.

Murdoch wants to widen the subscription base of The Daily. Statistics showed that it needs about 500,000 readers weekly just to break even.

The media mogul has also implemented several changes to keep the digital newspaper afloat. The company made changes on its opinion and sports sections.

About 120 of its staff would remain to work on The Daily.

In a statement, News Corp. said content of the sports section would be provided by partners. Industry observers said Fox Sports is being considered.

Other changes would be removal of the stand-alone opinion section. Opinion articles and editorials would be integrated in the news pages and when appropriate.

The Daily editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo expressed sadness over the layoff, saying these changes are necessary to make some difficult decisions. He acknowledged that everyone worked hard to make the digital newspaper successful.

The Daily publisher Greg Clayman is hopeful that as more people use tablets, The Daily would be able to grow its following. He believes that this is possible since it is backed by the largest media and publishing in the world.