Mediagazer: ESPN is shutting down its public API (Janko Roettgers/Gigaom)

10:20 PM ET, August 8, 2014

Top News:

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: Boing Boing, The Verge, Gawker, NBC News, US News, @reedalbergotti, ABC and Guardian

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

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: VentureBeat, Tech in Asia and Gigaom

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Senate panel: let cable subscribers pick local TV stations they're willing to pay for under “Local Choice” plan — Sources: Sen. Commerce Floats Retrans Remake — “Local Choice” pitch would be to let subs decide whether they want to pay station prices, get stations

Discussion: Variety, TVNewsCheck.com, The Hill and Multichannel News

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

NFL fights to save its TV “blackout rule” — Despite $9B revenue, NFL says blackout rule needed to keep football on free TV. — The National Football League (NFL) is trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to preserve 39-year-old blackout rules that prevent games …

Discussion: @bradleychambers, Weekly Standard and The Hill

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: Talking Biz News, @mlcalderone and FishbowlNY

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

ESPN is shutting down its public API — Sportscaster ESPN is getting ready to shut down its public API. ESPN's API team announced this week that it won't be issuing any new API keys going forward, and that all previously issued API keys are going to be revoked in early December.

Discussion: ESPN Developer Center, @burgwyn, @claylo, @jayrizzi1 and @pdxdbo

Leigh Anne Williams / Publishers Weekly:

Copyright Changes Hit Canadian Publishers Hard — Canada — When the Canadian Copyright Modernization Act was passed in 2012, publishing associations were happy with certain aspects of the legislation, including its antipiracy measures. But dissatisfaction in the industry has been mounting …

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

Agence France-Presse:

New outcry as Erdogan tells female reporter to ‘know your place’ — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced a new outcry on Friday over his attitude to the media and women after he branded a prominent female journalist a “shameless woman” and told her “to know your place”.

Discussion: Associated Press, The Independent, @zeynep, Today's Zaman …, @zeynep, Committee to Protect … and @zeynep

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.

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, VatorNews, VentureBeat and Capital New York