Mediagazer: Sotloff's parents told they could be prosecuted for paying ransom to IS (Michael Isikoff/Yahoo! News)

9:00 PM ET, September 12, 2014

Top News:

Michael Isikoff / Yahoo! News:

Sotloff's parents told they could be prosecuted for paying ransom to IS — Yahoo News 55 mins ago — The parents of murdered journalist Steven Sotloff were told by a White House counterterrorism official at a meeting last May that they could face criminal prosecution if they paid ransom …

Discussion: @isikoff, ABC News and @meekwire

ABC News:

‘So Little Compassion’: James Foley's Parents Say Officials Threatened Family Over Ransom … The mother of slain American journalist James Foley said she wasn't necessarily surprised that the U.S. government threatened her family with prosecution should they raise money to pay her son's ransom …

Discussion: Gawker, CNN, Latest News & Headlines, @isikoff, USA Today, Boing Boing, ABC News, Talking Points Memo, 7online.com, Guardian, @bro_pair, @wntonight, @shannonbream, @meekwire, @trdeghett, @wikileaks, Poynter, The Week and Reason

Denver Post:

Digital First Media to consider sale of some or all of its newspapers — By Digital First Media — NEW YORK — Digital First Media, the operator of The Denver Post, announced Friday that it will “evaluate and consider strategic alternatives” that could lead to the sale of some or all of the company.

Jim Romenesko:

Digital First Media's York Daily Record shuts off power mid-afternoon to save money — Digital First Media CEO John Paton told his employees this morning that “after a rocky five years, the newspaper industry is firmly back on its feet again.” — It is? Then why did Paton's York (PA) …

Discussion: @chrismegerian, @tjholmes_rs, @amuhs, @jbenton, @dancow, @coreypein and @ajfriedenberger

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: Publishers Weekly, International Business Times, Newsweek, The Daily Caller and Press Association

Erik Wemple / Washington Post: Huffington Post disputes Reddit ban

Tanya Dua / Digiday:

The YouTube-ification of Vimeo: Now with more baby videos — If you've hopped on to the New York City L train recently, chances are that you've come across a sea of blue: shrink-wrapped subway cars, plastered with Vimeo messaging. “If other video sites are the BQE, Vimeo is the High Line.”

Wall Street Journal:
Facebook is trying to lure YouTube's biggest content creators, discussing advertising

Discussion: Forbes, Reuters, Tubefilter, Times of India, Marketing Pilgrim, ValueWalk, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal and Reuters

Bloomberg:

Weather Channel Talks to Banks on Options Including Sale — The buyout firms that own Weather Channel Cos. have spoken to JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. about strategic options including a possible sale, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Multichannel News and Gawker

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Apple Users Download Free U2 Album Two Million Times — Some of you do not want the U2 album Apple is giving away. But lots of you were willing to download it. Or, at a minimum, your iPhones and MacBooks did. — iTunes users have downloaded more than 2 million copies of “Songs of Innocence” …

Discussion: Billboard, @bwerde, AppleInsider, Digiday, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and Business Insider

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: Forbes and 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: Guardian, @rosegeorge3, @sarahoconnor_ and Poynter

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 …

Kevin Gallagher / Freedom of the Press Foundation:

Fifteen Months After the NSA Revelations, Why Aren't More News Organizations Using HTTPS? — More than fifteen months after the NSA revelations laid bare the overwhelming scope of online surveillance and fueled the demand for privacy, virtually none of the top news websites …

Discussion: @headhntr and @csoghoian

Joanna Plucinska / Poynter:

Crowdsourcing during a crisis has its drawbacks — With all the talk of database journalism and mapping data, one would think crowdmapping would be taking off. But, it's unclear how useful the practice is for journalists, especially with data collected in dangerous humanitarian crises, like the one in Syria.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Google forced by European law to remove positive article — Google has been forced by Europe's “Right to Be Forgotten” law to remove an article about an artist named Dan Roach from its search results. The article ran in the U.K.'s Worcester News in 2009, and unlike many of the articles memory-holed by the law, was positive.

Discussion: Press Gazette, Guardian and HoldTheFrontPage

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: Talking Biz News, @jvanslem and The New York Observer

Capital New York:

The 60-second interview: Felix Salmon, senior editor, Fusion — CAPITAL: Fusion has done a great job at recruiting notable names, especially in the digital media realm. Tim Pool, you joined from Reuters... SALMON: I was just talking to someone, who is also on the shopping list, as it were.