Mediagazer: Better together: How two St. Louis nonprofit newsrooms are learning to thrive as one outlet (Joseph Lichterman/Nieman Lab)

3:10 AM ET, September 23, 2014

Top News:

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Apple won't shut down the Beats Music streaming service, but the Beats Music brand may change — Apple's Beats Music Brand May Go Away. Apple's Beats Music Service Is Sticking Around. — Earlier this year, Apple bought Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion.

Discussion: @pkafka, Mashable, @breakingbytes, @edmundlee, @ampressman, @sfiegerman, @antderosa, App Advice, AppleInsider, Business Insider and Consequence of Sound

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Beats Music brand will be shut down, product could be rolled into iTunes — Apple Plans To Shut Down Beats Music — Apple will discontinue the streaming music service Beats Music it acquired in May, according to five sources, including several prominent employees at Apple and Beats.

Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:

An Article on Shonda Rhimes Rightly Causes a Furor — The article on the television producer Shonda Rhimes hadn't yet appeared in Sunday's paper, but the virtual world was ablaze in protest over it on Friday after it was published online. — Written by the longtime TV critic, Alessandra Stanley …

Esquire:

On Fareed Zakaria and plagiarism: anonymous media watchdogs explore CNN's lack of response — CNN DOES NOT GET TO CHERRYPICK THE RULES OF JOURNALISM — The news is evolving. Old media is not evolving with it. … Over the past month, two anonymous journalists have detailed several dozen examples …

Discussion: Poynter, The Week, Politico, The Buttry Diary, Inside Cable News, @jayrosen_nyu, @jaredbkeller, @leducviolet and @planetoffinks

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

The (Atlantic) Wire Is Shutting Down — The Wire, formerly known at The Atlantic Wire, is shutting down, according to an internal memo obtained by Gawker. The breaking news site will be folded into the main site of The Atlantic magazine. Co-presidents James Bennett and Bob Cohn sent …

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, @kansasalps, Talking Points Memo, @mkonnikova, Capital New York, @mathewi, @jbenton, The New York Observer, MediaWire Daily, @jktrotter, @thestalwart, @clarajeffery, @adamclarkestes, @b_fung and LA Observed

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

HBO, Amazon Prime and Broadband for $40 a Month at AT&T — It's still nearly impossible to get HBO, or any other pay-TV channel, without subscribing to a pay-TV package that gives you a bundle of channels, whether you want them or not. — But the people who sell you TV are starting to tinker with the model, at least at the margins.

Discussion: Variety and The Verge

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:

Better together: How two St. Louis nonprofit newsrooms are learning to thrive as one outlet — In December, St. Louis Public Radio reporters Chris McDaniel and Véronique LaCapra published an investigation into whether Missouri was violating state law by buying drugs to execute prisoners from a company not licensed in Missouri.

Jim Romenesko:

Moody's sees “little evidence” that digital subs will help US newspapers and magazines — Moody's: ‘Our outlook for the U.S. newspapers and magazines sector is negative’ — No surprise: A new report from Moody's Investors Service says the outlook for newspapers and magazines “is negative through at least late 2015.”

Hannah Storm / Guardian:

Journalists are becoming propaganda and we must do more to protect them — Appearance of John Cantlie in Islamic State video and attacks on BBC staff in Russia highlight growing danger worldwide — I met the photojournalist John Cantlie in 2012, at a Frontline Club discussion of journalists' safety.

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Townsquare snaps up hip-hop mag XXL, plans to go digital-only — Townsquare Media is buying XXL, the 17-year old urban hip-hop magazine from Harris Publications, and will immediately stop producing a regular print edition, The Post has learned. — The October-November issue of the six-times-a-year title …

Discussion: @adampopescu, @passionweiss, @thekidskoob, @joshokane, @maskedgorilla, @refinedhype, Radio & Television …, FishbowlNY and MediaWire Daily

Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:

Female journalists have been shaping news coverage of the NFL's Ray Rice scandal — In Coverage of N.F.L. Scandals, Female Voices Puncture the Din — Last week, the ESPN anchor Hannah Storm did something she had never done in her 30-year career in sports broadcasting: She delivered a first-person commentary on the air.

Discussion: @lisenstromberg