Mediagazer: Chinese academic sentenced to life in prison after giving interviews to foreign reporters (Edward Wong/New York Times)

7:45 PM ET, September 23, 2014

Top News:

Layoffs hit Freedom Communications as it ceases publication of L.A. Register — Layoffs hit the Orange County Register on Tuesday after owner Freedom Communications ceased publication of its Los Angeles daily five months after it debuted. — The number of layoffs wasn't immediately clear …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, New York Times, Guardian, @gklaprade, @incrediblekulk, @earleyoc, @hillelaron, Associated Press, @dannysullivan, LA Observed, @stevebuttry, USA Today, @lauraelizdavis, Media Nation, @mattdpearce, LA Observed, @jimbradysp and @davidfolkenflik

Michael Muskal / Los Angeles Times:

Coalition files lawsuit challenging Arizona's ‘nude photo law’ — A coalition of booksellers and others involved in publishing and distributing images is suing the state of Arizona to overturn a law designed to protect people from the unwanted display of nude photos.

Discussion: Forbes, Techdirt, Associated Press, Reuters, Wired, The Week, Hit & Run and ACLU

Margaret Coker / Wall Street Journal:

British Journalist John Cantlie in Purported New Video by Islamic State — Video Part of a Campaign to Discredit Western Intervention Against Islamic State — The U.S. and five Middle Eastern allies launched airstrikes on Islamic State on Monday night. The targets included buildings used as IS supply depots.

Discussion: RT, BBC, The Huffington Post and Guardian

Hannah Storm / Guardian:
Journalists are becoming propaganda and we must do more to protect them

Discussion: @emmamayalex

Agence France-Presse:

Somali pirates release German-American journalist and writer Michael Scott Moore after more than two years — Somalia pirates release US-German hostage — Mogadishu (AFP) - Somali pirates on Tuesday freed a German-American journalist and writer, Michael Scott Moore …

Discussion: BBC, New York Times, Associated Press, SFWeekly, Medium, Committee to Protect … and VICE News

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

Dataminr, which detects breaking news on social media, now commercially available to news orgs — A New Tool Scours Social Media for Hot Tips — Earlier this year, several producers at CNN received an alert from a new digital news gathering tool that they were testing …

Discussion: @tvnewslab and The Next Web

Liam Dillon / Nieman Lab:

Behind the plans to turn San Diego's daily newspaper into a non-profit — What we know (and don't know) about the plan to make San Diego's daily a nonprofit — Editor's note: In San Diego, a philanthropist is talking about buying up the local daily and turning its ownership into a nonprofit model.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @niemanlab and Voice of San Diego

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Lab:

A conversation with David Rose, little magazine veteran and publisher of Lapham's Quarterly — When I sat down with John Summers to talk about the publishing strategy of The Baffler, he told me that if I really wanted to understand the business of small magazines, there was one man I simply had to talk to — David Rose.

Edward Wong / New York Times:

Chinese academic sentenced to life in prison after giving interviews to foreign reporters — Chinese Court Sentences Uighur Scholar to Life in Separatism Case — ALTAY, China — A university professor who has become the most visible symbol of peaceful resistance by ethnic Uighurs …

Discussion: The White House, CNN, Committee to Protect …, BBC, The Week and Mashable

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

PRSS Digital Magazine Platform Acquired By Apple — Apple has acquired Dutch digital magazine startup Prss, a platform that makes it easy to create iPad-compatible magazines using tools that don't require any knowledge of code. The company is essentially a magazine-focused version of iBooks Author …

Discussion: @emieljanson, AppleInsider, Talking New Media, @ibacertprogram, @sean_oneill, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and The Next Web

Ilya Khrennikov / Bloomberg:

News Corp, Pearson, and Axel Springer among firms that may have to sell their pieces of Russian media under draft law — Springer, Pearson Independence in Russia Tested by Media Bill — Russia's planned amendments to media law are threatening independent publications run by companies such as News Corp. …

Discussion: Reuters, New York Times and ITAR-TASS

Economist:

Think-tank journalism: more to promote ideas and policy than to inform or expose wrongdoing — Think tanks and journalism: the divide between having ideas and reporting on them is dissolving — The divide between having ideas and reporting on them is dissolving

Justin Ellis / Nieman Lab:

New York Times launches real-time aggregated feed of headlines, tweets, multimedia on homepage — Watching what happens: The New York Times is making a front-page bet on real-time aggregation — The rhythms of the homepage of NYTimes.com are by now familiar, even a little predictable.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Capital New York, @brianstelter, NetNewsCheck Latest, New York Times Company, Politico, @jeffjohnroberts, @justinnxt, @brianboyer, @jayrosen_nyu, New York Times and Cision

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Disney's Maker Studios Pacts with MiTú to Produce Latino YouTube Content — Maker Studios, the YouTube multichannel network owned by Disney, reached an exclusive deal with Latino-focused MCN MiTú to develop original and branded content aimed at the fast-growing U.S. Hispanic market.

Discussion: The Wrap

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

Amazon Looking To The Wisdom Of Crowds To Find New Authors — According to a Kindle Direct Publishing forum user, Amazon is quietly rolling out a way to find diamonds in the proverbial publishing rough. The unnamed project would bring a crowd approach to the acquisition of new titles using …

Discussion: The Digital Reader, Melville House Books and Publishers Weekly