Mediagazer: Toronto Star eliminating its paid digital subscriptions on April 1, making all content free (Toronto Star)

3:00 PM 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 and @ivortossell

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, Tech in Asia, Common Dreams, Guardian, NPR and Quartz

Ilya Marritz / WNYC News:

Deal with New York State allows Time Inc. to cut 917 jobs by 2017 and still retain subsidies — Taxpayer Subsidy Allows Time Inc. To Slash Jobs — Time Inc., the publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated, People, and many other magazines, is planning a move from Midtown to downtown Manhattan, with the help of public subsidies.

Discussion: @thesnydes, @jimschachter and Mediaite

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

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

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 …

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

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

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.

Discussion: 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 …

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

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

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

Abigail Edge / Journalism.co.uk:

The Times digital team launches open-source ‘quoteable’ image tool — The Times and Sunday Times is following in the footsteps of Vox Media and NPR by creating its own open-source image creation tool — Credit: Image by opensource.com on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Discussion: mUmBRELLA