Mediagazer: Google is testing “Listen Now” ads with Spotify, Rhapsody, and Apple's Beats Music (Rolfe Winkler/Wall Street Journal)

6:35 PM ET, August 8, 2014

Top News:

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How Vice News Got Unprecedented Access To The Islamic State — NEW YORK — When The New York Times reported last month on life in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the extremist group the Islamic State, the paper didn't reveal its reporter's identity or that of anyone interviewed out a fear of retaliation.

Discussion: VICE News, The New York Observer, New York Times, @mlcalderone, Business Insider, @jayrosen_nyu, Mashable, The Daily Caller, The Week, CyberJournalist.net, New York Magazine and Gawker

Natalie Andrews / Wall Street Journal:

Pentagon Announces Iraq Airstrikes With a Tweet — News first broke of the U.S. starting air strikes on Iraq militants in an unexpected way - it was announced by the Pentagon press secretary's Twitter account. — The account, associated with Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby …

Discussion: Reuters, Business Insider, Guardian, US News, Boing Boing, The Verge, @reedalbergotti and NBC News

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Japan's SmartNews raises $36M, is in talks with western media for autumn expansion — Exclusive: Twitter-Mining News App SmartNews Raises $36 Million from Atomico and Gree — Japanese newsreading app SmartNews has raised $36 million in new funding, in a round led by growth-stage investment firm Atomico …

Discussion: Gigaom, VentureBeat and Tech in Asia

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Coming to the Internet: Shows From CBS That You Won't See on CBS — CBS is working on shows that you won't see on CBS. Instead, the plan is for you to see them on the Internet, via video services like Netflix or Amazon's Prime Instant Video. — If that happens, it means CBS will have opened …

Discussion: Deadline.com, VentureBeat, VatorNews and Capital New York

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

After Twitch's Music Copyright Crackdown, What About Games Themselves? — Videogame streaming site Twitch is officially a big media site and can no longer fly under the legal radar, as evidenced by this week's announcement that videos in its archives with unlicensed music will be flagged and partially muted.

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon — ROUND POND, Me. — Out here in the woods, at the end of not one but two dirt roads, in a shack equipped with a picture of the Dalai Lama, a high-speed data line and a copy of Thoreau's “Civil Disobedience,” Amazon's dream of dominating the publishing world has run into some trouble.

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Bloomberg shifting political news power to NYC marks end of a decade of focus on Washington — Bloomberg's game change: New York's in charge — Bloomberg Media wants to be a dominant player in political news. In order to make that happen, the New York powers have wrested control of the steering wheel from Washington.

Discussion: @mlcalderone, Talking Biz News, FishbowlNY and TVNewser

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

Google is testing “Listen Now” ads with Spotify, Rhapsody, and Apple's Beats Music — Google Tests New Music Ads — Google is testing “Listen Now” ads with Spotify, Rhapsody and Apple 's Beats Music, the latest in a string of new ad formats that can simplify purchases for consumers.

Discussion: AppleInsider, @rolfewinkler and 9to5Mac

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

News Corp. holds firm on value of print — News Corp., the global publishing conglomerate chaired by Rupert Murdoch, reaffirmed its commitment to print in the face of ongoing financial pressures that have upended the industry as more readers migrate from paper to digital platforms.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, BBC, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, MediaWire Daily, @niemanlab, Yahoo! Finance, Guardian and Variety

Nikhil Pahwa / MediaNama:

The Hindu asks its journalists to avoid tweeting links from competing publications — The Hindu, a Chennai based English and Tamil language daily newspaper, has asked its journalists, with immediate effect, to avoid sharing or commenting on the content of competing publications, and ensure …

Discussion: Poynter, The Newsminute, @nicdawes, @mathewi, @nixxin, @ankushatwork and @rupabhshukla

Calvin Reid / Publishers Weekly:

Simon & Schuster Second Quarter Sales Rise 12% — Publishing revenue at Simon & Schuster rose 12% in the second quarter of 2014, with the publisher crediting the growth to such print bestsellers as Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices and Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes.

Discussion: Bookseller news

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Recode hires Bloomberg's Edmund Lee — Recode has hired Bloomberg media reporter Edmund Lee as their newest managing editor, Lee announced on Twitter Friday morning. Kenneth Li, the current managing editor, has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief. — Lee, who's been with Bloomberg for nearly three years, starts in September.

Discussion: @pkafka, @hadas_gold, @kenli729 and @edmundlee

Capital New York:

The 60-second interview: Derek Willis, reporter, the Times' The Upshot — CAPITAL: You joined The Upshot in February (in your hiring note, David Leonhardt called you “the intellectual father of the Times' Interactive News department.") How are things going so far? What are your primary responsibilities?

Discussion: @clockwerks, @jacqui, @jeremymbarr and @mathewi