Mediagazer: China shuts newspaper website amid extortion scandal (Michael Martina/Reuters)

11:15 AM ET, September 12, 2014

Top News:

William Turvill / Press Gazette:

BBC denies plan in place to double licence fee for independent Scots — The BBC has stood by its position of not reporting the impact that Scottish independence would have on its services. — It comes after The Guardian today reported that the corporation had kept secret an internal study revealing …

Discussion: Forbes

Tara Conlan / Guardian:
Independent Scotland ‘faces doubling of BBC licence fee’

Discussion: Daily Mail

Guardian:

Guardian newspaper to showcase new look and brand new ‘Journal’ section — The Guardian newspaper will be showcasing a new look from Saturday 13 September, with a completely redesigned Weekend magazine, a brand new ‘Journal’ section featuring long reads, and a generally refreshed look and feel.

Discussion: Poynter, @rosegeorge3 and @sarahoconnor_

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

Financial Times to debut big redesign Monday — The Financial Times will hit newsstands Monday with its first major redesign in seven years. And between the lines (set in a new typeface, called Financier, developed by rockstar New Zealand type designer Kris Sowersby) it's possible to read …

Discussion: @jvanslem and Talking Biz News

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Bloomberg Current, social media experiment, is ending — Bloomberg Current, a social discussion platform for business, curated and managed by its users that has been a Bloomberg News beta test, is ending at the end of the month. — Bloomberg Current has allowed members to post, discuss and share content.

Discussion: @ranjanxroy

Jonathan Marino / TheStreet.com:

Parade Magazine Goes up for Sale — NEW YORK ( The Deal) — Advance Publications' M&A march continues with its auction of Parade Publications, whose Sunday news magazine has been a staple in papers around the country since 1941. — The auction, which was first reported by the New York Post …

Dan Shanoff / Nieman Lab:

Wearables could make the “glance” a new subatomic unit of news — Next year will be my twentieth in digital news. From the start, I had an underlying disposition that digital news consumers — sports or otherwise — wanted their content easily digestible: brief, formatted, convenient.

Discussion: The New York Observer, @ryanpbroderick, @pilhofer, Yahoo, @sarahmarshall, TinyLetter and ZDNet

Myles Tanzer / BuzzFeed:
News apps were absent from Apple's Watch presentation, but Yahoo and Circa are building them

Discussion: AdAge, Nieman Lab, whatmobile.net, App Advice, CNET, ITProPortal, @adamcahan and VentureBeat

John Reynolds / Guardian:

Huffington Post banned from posting on Reddit section in attribution row — Social media site accuses some HuffPo Good News editors of ‘parasitic business model’ and sourcing content without credits — The Huffington Post's Good News section has been accused of lifting content from Reddit without crediting the source.

Discussion: Press Association

Michael Martina / Reuters:

China shuts newspaper website amid extortion scandal — (Reuters) - China has shut a respected business newspaper's website and opened an investigation, state media said on Friday, after executives confessed they extorted “huge payments” from companies in exchange for quashing critical stories.

Discussion: Reuters and New York Times

ABC News:

Government Threatened Foley Family Over Ransom Payments, Mother of Slain Journalist Says … Obama administration officials repeatedly threatened the family of murdered journalist James Foley that they might face criminal charges for supporting terrorism if they paid ransom to the ISIS killers …

Discussion: Poynter, 7online.com, @meekwire, @trdeghett and @shannonbream

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Journalists top the coffee-drinking league table despite health risks — Journalists are coffee addicts, drinking more cups a day than any other group of “professionals”, according to a survey conducted among 10,000 people. — Evidently, 85% of the respondents said they drink at least three cups …

Discussion: Poynter, Pressat Blog, @davidnelsonnews, @coreypein, The Independent and HoldTheFrontPage

David Bauder / Associated Press:

Networks say they're cutting back on Rice video — NEW YORK (AP) — At least six television networks said Thursday they plan to stop or minimize airings of video showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice striking his then-fiancee and knocking her unconscious, footage that has called …

Discussion: Jack Shafer, Hollywood Reporter, Vancouver Sun, The Huffington Post and Mediaite

Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:

Foreign Journalists in China See Decline in Reporting Conditions — Conditions for foreign journalists working in China have gone from bad to worse over the past year, with the Chinese authorities increasingly seeking to influence coverage by intimidating reporters and their interview subjects …

Discussion: @comradewong and @herbertnyt

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Microsoft's studio-grade Skype TX for broadcasters is released to manufacturers — Back in April, we reported that Microsoft was targeting broadcasters with the Skype TX, studio grade software “that delivers high quality audio and video output to seamlessly connect broadcast and media productions with people around the world.”

Discussion: mygtn.tv, WinBeta and Skype Blogs

Patrick Frater / Variety:

Chopflix Launches VoD Service for Asian Movies (EXCLUSIVE) — OTT service built on Vimeo On Demand platform — Los Angeles-based Asia Releasing is to launch an on-demand video service, Chopflix for North American fans of Asian movies. — Chopflix will start with 1,000 library titles and add six new features per month.

Lewis Blackwell / The Drum:

Creatives, it's time we do something about Google and its power over us and our work — A colleague has been burgled while away for the day. The fourth time in just a few months. The thief came through the front window in broad daylight, chiselled out the security bolts before entering …

Discussion: The Drum and @jeffjohnroberts

Jeremy Barr / Capital New York:

Times Book Review adds 12 new ‘Best Seller’ lists — The New York Times Book Review is adding 12 new monthly lists, part of a larger overhaul of the storied arbiter of literary success, it was announced Thursday morning. — The new “Best Seller” lists will include subjects like humor, travel, family and animals.

Discussion: Publishers Weekly, Melville House Books, GalleyCat and NetNewsCheck Latest

Jun Hongo / Wall Street Journal:

Release of Hirohito Records Limited to Selected Japanese Media — The Imperial Household Agency this week unveiled a 12,000-page record of Emperor Hirohito's reign but chose to make the copies available only to a limited number of domestic news organizations.

Steven Perlberg / Wall Street Journal:

YouTube Alone Brings In 20% Of Digital Video Ad Revenue — When it comes to ad dollars moving into the red-hot online video market, YouTube is king. But it's feeling pressure from potential digital usurpers. — YouTube will bring in $1.13 billion in 2014 video ad revenue …

Discussion: MediaPost, StreamDaily, Music Ally, Toronto Sun, PFhub.com, MediaPost, Los Angeles Times and Reuters

Reuters:

Exclusive : Univision to provide content for DirecTV online service by year end — (Reuters) - Hispanic media giant Univision will be a major supplier of content when satellite operator DirecTV (DTV.O) launches an Internet-delivered service aimed at a Hispanic audience, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement.

Discussion: Variety and Gigaom

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

IndieWeb advocates launch Known so bloggers can be social and still control their content — The founders of Known have launched an open-source web publishing tool that uses a number of IndieWeb standards to give users control over their content, instead of handing it and all the related data …

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Jill Abramson on What Happened at the New York Times, and What She's Doing Next: The Full Code/Media Interview — Jill Abramson says she can't explain, precisely, why she was fired from the New York Times' top editing job in May. But she's happy to talk about it.

Discussion: @pkafka and @leerichardson