Strange Bedfellows

'The Daily' Borrows Joan Baez

Heather Horn 557 Views Feb 15, 2011

What a wonderful, entertaining creature The Daily has wound up being--to those in the media who write about media, at least. First there was that hilarious first week (see the report from a guy who made his blind dates wear heart monitors). Now, via Adam Pasick at New York magazine, we learn that The Daily has produced another gem: editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo's back-to-work memo to the editorial staff. It's stirring. It's evocative. It's America. And, if you ask us, it sounds suspiciously like the Phil Ochs song "There But Fortune," popularized by Joan Baez.

To see what we mean, fire up this Youtube version of the song and then read along with Angelo:

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.

For those of you without audio, here are Ochs's first two stanzas:

Show me the prison, show me the jail
Show me the prisoner whose face is growing pale
And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or go I

Show me the alley, show me the train
Show me the hobo who sleeps out in the rain
And I'll show you a young man with many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or go I

Don't worry, Daily: we don't just make fun of you. We giggled a bit at some soaring rhetoric from Politico, too.

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Heather Horn