Mediagazer: Spotify introduces unlimited free music on the web just days before Beats Music launch (Casey Newton/The Verge)

2:05 PM ET, January 16, 2014

Top News:

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

The Independent seeks buyer — The Independent is up for sale. The paper's founder, and current chairman of its publishing company, Andreas Whittam Smith, has been authorised to seek out a buyer. — The owners, Alexander Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, have been indicating …

Discussion: @spencetimes, BuzzFeed, @raju, @bounder, @adambienkov, @samirashackle, @scottygb, Management Today and The Drum

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

The Independent's future in jeopardy as sales fall to alarming level — It is hard to imagine anyone buying The Independent and therefore places the paper's future existence in jeopardy. The fact that its owner has failed to find a buyer after months of seeking one suggest that its newsprint days are coming to an end.

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Independent owners decline to comment on report that title is again up for sale — The publishers of The Independent declined to comment this morning on a report that the title is again up for sale - nearly four years after it was sold by Independent News and Media to Alexander Lebedev.

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Financial documents being shown to potential buyers raise questions about its future growth. Has Forbes peaked? And can it justify the high price it's seeking — The newsonomics of Forbes' real performance and price potential — The bidding for Forbes is now moving into round two, with a sale expected within a month.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @rafat, @foxjust, @eamonn, @jeffjohnroberts, @bobbymacreports, @rafat, @pkafka and @niemanlab

Chris Elliott / Guardian:

Open door: Why an article on Lisa Bonchek Adams was removed from the Guardian site — I don't think it is wrong to frame a question about how those with incurable illnesses use social media, but the Guardian was wrong in the way it went about it — Lisa Bonchek Adams is a woman …

Josh Stearns / Free Press Blog:

Net Neutrality and the Future of Journalism — Tuesday's court decision, which struck down the FCC's Open Internet Order and threatened the future of Net Neutrality, has huge implications for the future of journalism and press freedom. — According to the Pew Research Center …

Discussion: @jcstearns, Gigaom, The New Yorker Blog and Consumerist

Bloomberg:
Tallying the Cost to Netflix in Verizon's Victory Over FCC

Discussion: @harrisj and @harrisj

Mark Stencel / Poynter:

Tech reporter Brian Krebs hacks it on his own, one scoop at a time … Few news stories in the past month landed on homepages and front pages with a louder thud than the theft of credit and debit card information from millions of Target customers. — The Target break-in was the latest scoop …

Discussion: @ampress, @ezraklein, @jayrosen_nyu, @poynter, @ktoughill, @amzam and Talking Biz News

Wall Street Journal:

Cox Communications Not Preparing Bid for Time Warner Cable — As One Potential Suitor Steps Aside, Comcast, Charter Discuss Collaborating on an Offer — Cox Communications Inc. isn't preparing a bid for Time Warner Cable Inc. , according to people familiar with the matter …

Discussion: Reuters

Bloomberg: Charter's Time Warner Cable Bid Puts Rutledge in Dealmaker Role

Robert Mackey / New York Times:

A.P. Cameraman Detained in Egypt After His Images Appear on Al Jazeera — A cameraman covering the constitutional referendum in Egypt for The Associated Press was arrested on Wednesday while transmitting live video from a polling place in Cairo. — The journalist, Hassan Abdullah Hassan …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, CNN and Mediaite

BBC:
Egypt ‘charges’ three al-Jazeera English journalists

Discussion: @monaeltahawy, CityNews, CBC News, @bbcworld, @evanchill, Daily News Egypt and @bbcbreaking

Pew Internet:

E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps — The proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions. — The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012.

Discussion: Quartz, Publishers Weekly, GalleyCat, BetaNews, @webjunction, VatorNews, Digits, @pewresearch, The Next Web, @lrainie and @geoffreyfowler

Mark Potts / Recovering Journalist:

Introducing Newspeg — A New Way to Look at News — Do you get the feeling you're awash in a flood of news? — The internet has unleashed a torrent of news sources, old and new, that we're all scrambling to make sense of and sort out. The old convenient package of news that landed …

Discussion: @mathewi and @jeffjarvis

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

Netflix ‘original’ documentary lands Oscar nomination — “The Square,” a Netflix-backed film about the 2011 Egyptian revolution, secured an Oscar nomination for documentary feature on Thursday, fulfilling the Academy Awards buzz it drummed up at film festivals.

Discussion: Speakeasy, Media & Entertainment, The Wrap, LA Observed, FishbowlNY, Forbes, VentureBeat, The New Yorker Blog, Rolling Stone, Variety, The Next Web, The Verge and @tiff_net

Matthew Lynch / Capital New York:

Memo: Condé Nast ad pages flat in Q1 — Condé Nast Media Group president Lou Cona said ad pages were flat across the company's magazines in its first quarter in a memo to staffers sent Thursday. — Though pages were up in January and March, a “flagging” February contributed to the results …

Ed Christman / Billboard:

FCC Shelves Pandora's Bid For South Dakota Radio Station — In another minor setback to its music licensing plans, Pandora has received word from the FCC that it is no longer processing its application for the transfer of the ownership of broadcasting license for KXMZ, the Rapid City, South Dakota radio station it acquired last June.

Discussion: Gigaom, Radio Ink Magazine, Electronista, Billboard, @mpinc and Music Week

Susan Currie Sivek / Mediashift:

Digital Technology Remodels Women's Magazines — Women's magazines are full of fashion, beauty and relationship tips. However, studying them has also taught one researcher a lot about their future, and about the future of the magazine industry as a whole.

Discussion: @pbsmediashift and @brookeerinduffy

Alex Miller / VICE:

Kelvin MacKenzie is Wrong About International News — Last night, parochial news troll Kelvin MacKenzie appeared on Newsnight to claim that foreign reporting “is killing TV news”. He was being entertained by Paxman and the rest thanks to new research, which suggests that TV viewers are often indifferent to foreign news stories.

Discussion: @viceuk

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Maker Studios Hires Ex-AOL Exec Rene Rechtman to Lead International Operations — Exec also will take a stake in the multichannel network operator eyeing expansion outside the U.S. — @xpangler — Rene Rechtman, who resigned as CEO of AOL's branded content division last fall …

Discussion: The Wrap and Re/code

Miranda Neubauer / TechPresident:

Need a Journalist? In Germany, There's an App For That — Call a Journalist app (Cross & Lecker/Facebook) — Over the past weeks, the city of Hamburg in Germany was caught up in ongoing occasionally violent standoffs and demonstrations between left-wing protestors and the police …

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Top editors at Washington Post, Politico talk after Wemple scrutinizes Mike Allen's Playbook — Washington Post and Politico Talk About a Rift — Top editors at The Washington Post and Politico tried on Wednesday to mend a rift between the two news organizations.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @jayrosen_nyu, @buzzfeedandrew, @romenesko, @ravisomaiya, @ericboehlert and @erik_hayden

Charles V. Bagli / New York Times:

Time Warner Announces a Move From Columbus Circle to Hudson Yards — Time Warner Inc. announced Thursday that it plans to move its headquarters from Columbus Circle to a new 80-story skyscraper on the Far West Side of Manhattan, ensuring the development of a vast complex of office towers …

Discussion: Bloomberg, MarketWatch, CNNMoney.com and The Global Herald

Publishers Weekly:

Simon & Schuster Expands Library E-Book Program — After jumping into the library e-book market last April with a limited pilot, Simon & Schuster is expanding its program to more libraries, and adding OverDrive to its list of vendors. The publisher and OverDrive today announced …

Discussion: GalleyCat, Good E-Reader and Digital Book World

Alex Litel / The Wire:

‘This Haunts Me at Night’: The Man Behind ViralNova on the Viral Bubble — To the average online journalist, few words as irksome as the clinical and ill-defined “content.” Everything on the internet is content, which means a reblogged chart about millenials with a clickbaity title is lumped …

Discussion: @gabrielsnyder, @alexlitel, @jaredbkeller and Business Insider

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Vimeo turns to Kickstarter and Indiegogo to find and fund movies — Vimeo announced an interesting twist on original content licensing Thursday morning: The IAC-owned video site will scour crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo for movies to license, and then offer creators free Pro accounts …

Discussion: PR Newswire and Indiewire

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Facebook tracks hot topics with Twitter-esque Trending area of the News Feed — Facebook today announced Trending, a new section in the top right corner of the News Feed that highlights TV shows, events, and articles that are being talked about by its users.