Mediagazer: Spotify plans more competitive pricing to match Apple Music's family plan of $14.99 for up to six people (Ben Popper/The Verge)

9:50 PM ET, June 8, 2015

Top News:

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

For news organizations, this was the most important set of Apple announcements in years — There wasn't a lot of buildup beforehand, but today's Apple keynote turned out to be the most important for publishers in years. (To be clear, there have been many more important Apple announcements for Apple.

Discussion: Forbes, Mashable, CNNMoney, Pocket-lint, Medium, AppleInsider, @antderosa, @mmasnick, @robhorning, 9to5Mac, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, @lainnafader, @mattdpearce, Talking New Media and @antderosa

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Apple News looks like Flipboard and replaces Newsstand on your iPhone or iPad — Rumors suggested Apple was planning to kill off Newsstand, and now the company is making it official: News will replace Newsstand. News brings content from publishers across the world, and content owners can customize the way articles are displayed.

Discussion: Guardian, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Re/code, Wall Street Journal, Poynter, @brianstelter, @robertandrews, @jonsteinberg, @gaberivera, CNET, @matthewkeyslive, @tcarmody, @robertandrews, @jessicalessin and @brianstelter

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

Apple's News app might help Apple. It probably won't help the news. — I have to assume that in some culture (maybe my own), there is an allegory about an ill patient being tended to by scores of doctors, all of whom offer different remedies, breaking into factions focused on one strategy or another …

Discussion: Bloomberg Business, The Verge, BetaNews, MacRumors, Talking New Media, @ryantate and Capital New York

D.B. Hebbard / Talking New Media:

Publishers get 100% of ads they sell with Apple's News Publisher, 70% of ads sold by iAd; offers targeting and reporting — Apple releases News Publisher guidelines for including content in the upcoming News app — Apple's News app will launch in the fall with the release of iOS 9 …

Discussion: 9to5Mac and WebProNews

Janko Roettgers / Variety:

Apple announces Apple Music: music streaming, human-curated playlists, Beats 1 24/7 radio, Connect to allow artists to interact with fans — Apple Launches Apple Music Subscription Service — Apple officially introduced its new music streaming service, dubbed Apple Music …

Discussion: Re/code, Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, AdAge, VentureBeat, The Verge, Forbes, Pocket-lint, @applemusic, Business Insider, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, @penenberg, @fmanjoo, @cnet, VentureBeat, @laurengoode, @antderosa, CNET, @samgustin and Wall Street Journal

Business Wire:

Apple Music launching June 30 on iOS, Mac, and PC with 3 months free, then $9.99 per month, coming to Apple TV and Android phones this fall — Introducing Apple Music — All The Ways You Love Music. All in One Place. — SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Apple® today unveiled Apple Music™ …

Discussion: Re/code, TechCrunch, Adweek, VentureBeat, MacRumors, Mercury News, Guardian, The Huffington Post, ZDNet, Engadget, @lanceulanoff, Android Police, NerdWallet Credit Card Blog, 9to5Mac and USA Today

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Apple Revives Ping As “Connect,” Letting Artists Share A Feed Of Music, Videos And Social Media

Discussion: Top Digital Journal News and VentureBeat

Ben Popper / The Verge:
Spotify plans more competitive pricing to match Apple Music's family plan of $14.99 for up to six people

Discussion: Business Insider

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

Lester Holt poised to take Brian Williams' anchor chair permanently — It is increasingly clear that Lester Holt is going to stay in the “NBC Nightly News” anchor chair. — His assignment was originally supposed to last six months — the amount of time Brian Williams was suspended after ten years at the helm of “Nightly.”

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

One year after launch, Slate Plus has 9,000+ subscribers, generating around $500K a year — One year in, Slate draws 9,000 paying subscribers — For Slate, getting readers to pay for content was going back to the future. Back in 1998, it was one of the first sites to try a paywall, which quickly failed.

Discussion: @mathewi, @raju, VentureBeat, Mediashift and @jayrosen_nyu

Julia Turner / Slate:
Slate launches metered paywall for non-US readers, five free stories a month, cites inability to monetize international readership through domestic ads revenue

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Media Wire Daily

Joel Simon / Columbia Journalism Review:

Why the Jason Rezaian case is a game changer for US correspondents — Jason Rezaian appeared Monday in Iranian court, where he defended himself against espionage and other charges that could lead to 20 years in prison. The trial is closed — a request from the Washington Post to send a representative has not garnered a reply.

Discussion: @zerofskaya, @cjr and @postbaron

Nasser Karimi / Associated Press:
Jason Rezaian's mother says reporter is “very tired, very distressed”

Discussion: Associated Press

VICE News:
Trial of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian resumes in Iran

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, tasnimnews.com, CBS News, Associated Press and Associated Press

Steven Perlberg / Wall Street Journal:

CNN launches Courageous, a new studio producing branded content for advertisers — CNN Unveils New Studio to Produce Content for Advertisers — CNN is creating an in-house studio that will produce news-like content on behalf of advertisers, a move that reflects marketers' growing desire …

Discussion: TVNewser, Politico, @markharrisnyc, @raju, @edgecliffe, @perlberg, @joshsternberg and Adweek

Alana Goodman / Washington Free Beacon:

Clinton Donated $100K to New York Times Group the Same Year Paper Endorsed Her — A little-known private foundation controlled by Bill and Hillary Clinton donated $100,000 to the New York Times' charitable fund in 2008, the same year the newspaper's editorial page endorsed Clinton …

Discussion: Hot Air, Politico, @andrewstilesusa, @redsteeze, FishbowlNY, @continetti, @dylanbyers, @glennthrush and @liz_cheney

Dylan Byers / Politico:
New York Times spokesperson rejects Free Beacon report on Clinton donation, says it is preposterous

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, @dylanbyers, @davidsirota, @alanagoodman and The Week

Peter Sterne / Capital New York:

Reporters announce conference in Lousiville to unionize digital media — A group of reporters associated with the labor movement are organizing a conference in Louisville to discuss how to unionize the digital media industry. — The National Convergence to Organize Digital Media will be held in Louisville, Ky. on Oct. 8-11.

Discussion: @leonlazaroff, @timothys and @noahmccormack

Justin Ellis / Nieman Lab:

CALmatters aims to make people interested in state government and fill a gap in California — This is the idea: A small collection of journalists, with backgrounds in newspapers, broadcast, and years of investigative work, join together to create a nonprofit news outlet.

Nicole Levy / Capital New York:

Larry Kramer steps down as USA Today publisher, joins board of new Gannett — USA Today publisher Larry Kramer is leaving the newspaper to take a seat on the board of Gannett's new publishing company. — Kramer, who was named publisher and president of USA Today in 2012 …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Poynter, USA Today, @rafat, @vivian, Politico, AdAge, @katies, The Wrap and @raju

Wall Street Journal:

Publishers Expect More Facebook Instant Articles Later This Month — Facebook had the media world buzzing last month when it debuted its Instant Articles product, which lets media companies publish content directly to the social network instead of driving iOS mobile users back to their own sites.