Mediagazer: New report finds 119M people listen to online radio weekly and 45% of them use Pandora (Chris Leo Palermino/Digital Trends)

9:55 AM ET, March 7, 2015

Top News:

Toronto Star eliminating its paid digital subscriptions on April 1, making all content free — Note to Readers: Star to end paid digital subscriptions on April 1 — We are announcing the cancellation of Digital Access, our paid digital subscription program for readers of our website, thestar.com, effective April 1, 2015.

Discussion: @mathewi

Edward Wong / New York Times:

Major Chinese internet firms including Youku and Tencent delete links to pollution documentary “Under the Dome” — China Blocks Web Access to Documentary on Nation's Air Pollution — BEIJING — “Under the Dome,” a searing documentary about China's catastrophic air pollution …

Discussion: Asia Unbound and Common Dreams

C. Custer / Tech in Asia:
China orders WeChat, Weibo, and news sites to crack down on coverage of pollution documentary “Under the Dome”, but some discussion continues

Discussion: Tech in Asia, @tomphillipsin, Guardian, Guardian, Tech in Asia, NPR, Foreign Policy, China Digital Times, Guardian, China Digital Times and Quartz

Chadwick Matlin / FiveThirtyEight:

Draftback allows playback of the writing process to offer insights and teach writing skills — Watch Me Write This Article — If you could watch a replay of James Somers building a program that lets us see our own writing played back to us, you'd need to start seven years ago.

Discussion: @ksablan, @kenbaumann, @austinkleon, @scottros and The Awl

Sean Augustine-Obi / Capital New York:

Brooklyn-based digital magazine Bklynr folds after two years — After 44 issues, the Brooklyn digital magazine Bklynr announced on Thursday that the publication was shutting down. — In an email to staff and contributors, founding editors Thomas Rhiel and Raphael Pope-Sussman announced …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

New York Times:

Study finds at least 46K Twitter accounts linked to ISIS; from September to December Twitter suspended 1K accounts — ISIS Is Adept on Twitter, Study Finds — The Islamic State, the violent extremist group that espouses a return to a seventh-century caliphate, has been astonishingly successful …

Discussion: Mashable, Brookings Institute, The Huffington Post, The Hill, Vocativ, Daily Mail, PandoDaily, @nytimesworld, Computerworld, International Business Times, The Independent, Washington Post, SocialTimes, BBC, @jeffjohnroberts, @susancrabtree, The Drum and TIME

Hiba Zayadin / Mediashift: Fighting Words: Inside the Social Media War Against ISIS

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Apple negotiates with music labels for streaming licenses that would forego free tier, allow high-profile artists to distribute with Apple first — Apple, Music Labels Push Against Free Music on Spotify, YouTube — Right now it's easy to stream any song you want, whenever you want, legally, without paying a penny.

Discussion: @om, MacRumors, @pkafka, Digital Music News, Digital Trends, Consumerist, MacRumors, Gigaom, @mikeisaac, Billboard, SlashGear, Fast Company, AppleInsider, @jonrussell, hypebot, @richantoniello and 9to5Mac

Chris Leo Palermino / Digital Trends:

New report finds 119M people listen to online radio weekly and 45% of them use Pandora — Who's the king of online radio? New report crowns the winner — Online streaming music has been abuzz for years now, but how many people are actually listening? What's the most popular service?

Discussion: Billboard and SlashGear

Pedro Servin / Associated Press:

Paraguayan Journalist Shot to Death Along Brazil Border — A Paraguayan radio journalist has been shot to death in a Brazilian city bordering a crime-ridden area that is a hotbed for drugs and arms smuggling, officials said on Friday. — Gerardo Servian worked for a local radio station near the city of Pedro Juan Caballero.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Pandora to release day pass for ad-free listening — Credit: Shutterstock / Evgeny Korshenkov — Credit: Shutterstock / Evgeny Korshenkov — Pandora is looking to add a paid day pass to its service later this year, company executives revealed during Pandora's investor day Thursday.

Toledo Blade‎:

US government agrees to pay Toledo Blade $18K after seizing photographer's camera and deleting photos — Blade gets $18,000 from government for deleted photos — In what was seen as a victory for First Amendment rights, the U.S. government agreed Thursday to pay The Blade $18,000 for seizing …

Discussion: @jonathanwpeters, @onanews and The Newspaper Guild

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

New editor Impoco has Newsweek back in the black — Newsweek hopes to expand editorial staff to 100 by next year. — One year after the embattled Newsweek returned to print as a small run weekly, Editor-in-Chief Jim Impoco has apparently done something that eluded previous high-flying editors Tina Brown …

Discussion: @jimpoco, @jackshafer, @alexnazaryan, @johnness, @learmonth and @antderosa

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Andy Lack named chairman of NBC News and MSNBC — Andy Lack, the former NBC executive who was rumored to be considering a return to the network, has been named chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke announced in a memo to staff Friday.

Jack Riley / Nieman Lab:

How publishers like the Financial Times and Circa are thinking about using smartwatches for notifications, personalization, and revenue — The next stage in the battle for our attention: Our wrists — Editor's note: On Monday, Apple is expected to formally launch the Apple Watch, which will go on sale next month.

Discussion: @stumackintosh and @_jackriley