Mediagazer: Celebrity gossip site TMZ extends reach and earns some credibility with scoops on NFL scandals (Jonathan Mahler/New York Times)

10:50 AM ET, September 10, 2014

Top News:

Alan Rusbridger / Guardian:

welcome to Guardian Membership — The Guardian is much more than a business - for almost 200 years we have dedicated our resources to the kind of public service journalism that recently won a Pulitzer prize. By becoming a member you'll help support that ideal and, no doubt, have a great time in doing so

Discussion: Poynter, @cathomahony, @julieposetti, @vivian and @arusbridger

Ken Doctor / Nieman Lab:

Guardian launching community events and voluntary membership programs from £15-£60 per month — Guardian Space & Guardian Membership, playing the physical/digital continuum — Can it be that the solution to newspaper companies' digital woes lies in the physical world?

Discussion: Guardian, @lloydshep, @michaelfredman, @mattlearmouth, @gallaghereditor and @jayrosen_nyu

Jeremy Barr / Capital New York:

N.Y.T. reporter: U.S. needs to pressure Europe on journalist ransoms — New York Times foreign correspondent Rukmini Callimachi told a crowd last night that the U.S. should be pressuring European countries to stop paying ransom to terrorist kidnappers. — The U.S. generally refuses to pay ransoms …

Reuters:
White House doesn't believe slain U.S. journalist was ‘sold’ to Islamic State

Discussion: Mediaite, International Business Times, International Business Times, The Times of Israel, FOX6Now.com, Politico and The Huffington Post

Michael Isikoff / Yahoo! News:
In high-tech battle, Washington and Islamic State compete over hearts and minds

Discussion: @isikoff and @isikoff

Alice Truong / Fast Company:
ISIS-affiliated Twitter account calls for assassination of Twitter employees, Twitter investigating

Discussion: SFGate Blog, Mashable, Vocativ, Washington Post, International Business Times, The Inquisitr News, Firstpost, The Wire, Daily Mail, The Hill, Business Insider and The Daily Caller

Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:

Celebrity gossip site TMZ extends reach and earns some credibility with scoops on NFL scandals — TMZ Broke Ray Rice, Donald Sterling and Jameis Winston Stories in 10-Month Span — Last November, TMZ broke the news that the Heisman Trophy candidate Jameis Winston was being investigated …

Discussion: Guardian, Philly.com, Bloomberg, @newyorkist, @johnmcquaid, Strupp Blog, @jonathanmahler, @lisatozzi, @mrmichaellee, @cthagod and National Sports …

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Hacked Celeb Pics Made Reddit Enough Cash to Run Its Servers for a Month — If you saw Kate Upton or Jennifer Lawrence naked last week, there's a good chance you saw them on the social news site Reddit. The self-proclaimed “front page of the Internet” was one of the main hosts …

T.C. Sottek / The Verge:
Reddit uses “free speech” to defend the site's unsavory uses while ignoring the victims

Discussion: The Awl and @ma_franks

John Jurgensen / Wall Street Journal:

U2, Apple and the Deal Behind Getting ‘Songs of Innocence’ Free of Charge — A decade after releasing “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” U2 was front and center in a presentation that could have been called “how to hype a new tech product.” — Along with Apple's announcement …

Discussion: Forbes, Billboard, Adweek, MediaNama, Apple, Showbiz411, Quartz, Billboard, AppleInsider and TIME

CNET:
Apple's iTunes scores U2's new album. You score it free.

Discussion: Billboard, Reverb, Washington Post, @emwhitenoise, New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Mashable and The Verge

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Viacom Closes $725 Million Acquisition of U.K.'s Channel 5 — It will start airing “SpongeBob” and the “Turtles” and send contestants of a new show back to the Stone Age — Viacom said Wednesday that it has closed its $725 million (£450 million) acquisition of British broadcaster Channel 5.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Deadline, Broadcast, Guardian, WorldScreen.com, TVWise, MediaTel, ATV Today, Variety and MarketWatch

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Grooveshark no longer supports Chromecast following RIAA claim it infringes artists' copyright — Grooveshark's streaming music and radio service no longer supports casting to the big screen via Google's Chromecast dongle. — While support to cast “content licensed from thousands of artists …

Discussion: Complete Music Update, Softpedia News, TorrentFreak, RAIN News and hypebot

Wall Street Journal:

Google Seeks Views in Europe on Right to be Forgotten — Company Seeking Balance in Handling of “Complicated Issue” — Google Inc. executives embarked Tuesday on a seven-city tour of European capitals to discuss Europe's “right to be forgotten,” one of several fronts in which the U.S. search firm faces …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Bloomberg, PC Magazine, Reuters, WRAL Tech Wire, ctvnews.ca, Opposing Views, Independent.ie, Reuters, New York Times, The Drum, Wall Street Journal, Search Engine Land and Wall Street Journal

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Deezer launches in the US at $15/month with high quality streaming audio that works with Sonos — Deezer Joins a Crowded Music Subscription Market, with a High-End Pitch — If you want to spend $10 a month on a music subscription service in the U.S., there are plenty of people who are happy to take your money*.

Discussion: VentureBeat, The Verge, The Next Web, Billboard, Los Angeles Times, @waltmossberg, Digital Journal, Mashable, Radio Survivor and Engadget

Jane Martinson / Guardian:

New chair of BBC Trust to continue roles at HSBC and Pepsi — Rona Fairhead said she would ‘prioritise’ the BBC in her expected new role as the head of the BBC's governing body — Rona Fairhead, the government's preferred choice to chair the BBC Trust, is to continue her lucrative non-executive roles …

Discussion: @budgie, Telegraph, Telegraph, Guardian, The Independent and BBC

Andy / TorrentFreak:

BBC: ISPs Should Assume Heavy VPN Users are Pirates — After cutting its teeth as a domestic broadcaster, the BBC is spreading its products all around the globe. Shows like Top Gear have done extremely well overseas and the trend of exploiting other shows in multiple territories is set to continue.

Discussion: PC Pro, The Register, Computing, Boing Boing, TechWeekEurope UK and Softpedia News

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Full memo from Politico CEO Jim VandeHei and editor-in-chief John Harris on European expansion — POLITICO partners with Axel Springer for European expansion — POLITICO is teaming up with the Berlin-based media company Axel Springer to launch a European edition.