Mediagazer: BBC creating offices in six US cities in the next six months to experiment with local coverage (Ricardo Bilton/Digiday)

2:20 PM ET, September 10, 2014

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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: Guardian, The Drum, Poynter, Digiday, @dangillmor, @arusbridger, @cathomahony, @julieposetti, @jcstearns, @gunnar40 and @vivian

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, @redbrand, TheMediaBriefing, @jayrosen_nyu, @mattlearmouth, @lloydshep, @akshatrathi, @gallaghereditor and @michaelfredman

Reuters:

White House doesn't believe slain U.S. journalist was ‘sold’ to Islamic State — (Reuters) - The United States has no information indicating beheaded American journalist Steven Sotloff was “sold” to Islamic State militants by moderate Syrian opposition rebels, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday.

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 …

Discussion: @mlcalderone

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 …

Discussion: International Business Times, UPROXX and New York Magazine

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

Discussion: @ma_franks and The Awl

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

Edmund Lee / Re/code:
MTV, Comedy Central To Show Up on Sony's Internet-TV Service

Discussion: Multichannel News, The Wrap, Deadline, Press Release, Bloomberg, New York Post, CNET, RTTNews, FierceCable, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter, Boston Herald and The Verge

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: TVNewser, Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review, Philly.com, New Yorker, The Daily Beast, @nytimes, @karenholmesward, Bloomberg, Strupp Blog, @newyorkist, @jonathanmahler, @johnmcquaid, National Sports …, @mrmichaellee, @cthagod and @lisatozzi

Dan Gillmor / Guardian:

The Internet Slowdown protest for net neutrality needs to target regulators — Websites are loading slowly today to show what a future without net neutrality looks like. But perhaps a targeted slowdown in in order — The point of the protest is to make you angry …

Discussion: Lost Remote, TIME, @guardianus, @dangillmor and Techdirt

Kevin Rawlinson / BBC:
Twitter supports Internet Slowdown campaign along with Netflix, Reddit, Wordpress, Digg, more

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Boing Boing, Guardian, USA Today, Gigaom, Washington Post, Softpedia News, The Next Web, TIME, @neeliekroeseu, @4b5, RT, CBS Chicago and BetaNews

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 …

Aoife White / Bloomberg:
Google Right-to-Be-Forgotten Roadshow Rebuffs Questions

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

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

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

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

Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:

IDG shutters Macworld Magazine, much of the editorial staff let go … International Data Group (IDG) is shutting down Macworld Magazine, the long time Apple periodical according to tweets by staff and conversations I've had with personnel. Dan Miller, Editor, Macworld tweeted the following:

Discussion: Jason Snell, Poynter and @jsnell

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

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

BBC creating offices in six US cities in the next six months to experiment with local coverage — BBC goes local — and mobile — with experimental ‘popup’ bureaus — For its latest coverage expansion, international news organization BBC is going local. Very local.

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Why Peter Wright should not be sitting on Ipso's complaints body — Is it not truly amazing that Peter Wright, the former Mail on Sunday editor, has been named as a member of the complaints committee at the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso)? — This is the man who …

Discussion: Daily Mail and @stevenjbarnett