News Corporation is apparently doing some pruning, pulling the plug on its little-known internal news wire, and putting iPad newspaper The Daily "on watch," reports The New York Observer's Kat Stoeffel. "According to a source the status of the groundbreaking iPad tabloid—which loses $30 million a year—will be reassessed after the November 6 election," Stoeffel noted low in her story about the death of Newscore. (The Daily, which launched in February 2011, was reportedly developed for $30 million.) That should make some News Corp. employees very nervous as their company prepares to split, creating a new company for its less-profitable newspapers.

As for Newscore, whose best-known scoop was probably President Barack Obama's surprise visit to Afghanistan on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, had already been absorbed into Fox News, and its executives reassigned within News Corp. Stoeffel reports that 20 other employees will lose their jobs as the wire goes dark. And the rest of News Corp. will apparently miss it: "For News Corp. employees, Newscore was cherished as a wackier alternative to other wires, curating a web-friendly—and classically Murdoch—mix of the buzzy weird news, crime and animal stories well-suited to the company’s tabloid elements." But at least in this case, wackiness was not enough to keep it going.

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Adam Martin