Top News:

Sasha Frere-Jones to launch entertainment vertical at LA Times — Sasha Frere-Jones, the former New Yorker music writer who left that magazine for the annotation startup Genius, will be a cultural critic at large for the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper announced Wednesday morning.

New Reddit CEO announces content policy update AMA on July 16, says some subreddits shouldn't exist and Reddit wasn't founded as “a bastion of free speech” — Content Policy update. AMA Thursday, July 16th, 1pm pst. — There has been a lot of discussion lately —on reddit …
Discussion:
Re/code, Gawker, Forbes, USA Today, BuzzFeed, Los Angeles Times, Guardian, @jamesrbuk, The Next Web, @pmarca, @davechensky, Washington Post, @digiphile, VatorNews, New York Times, Business Insider, Gizmodo, The Verge, Engadget and Re/code


Judge Rejects New “Blurred Lines” Trial, Trims Damages to $5.3 Million — The judge has also ruled that Universal Music and T.I. should be held liable for copyright infringement. — The federal judge overseeing the high-profile lawsuit brought by the Marvin Gaye family against Robin Thicke …


Water Deeply launches to focus on California's drought as a continuation of Lara Setrakian's pop-up news site model; Arctic Deeply to launch in October — News Site Water Deeply Will Tackle The California Drought Crisis — California's record-breaking drought crisis is now in its fourth year.
Discussion:
@waterdeeply, @lara and @kate_day


Skift nears profitability, is focusing on trends and the future of travel — What are they thinking? Rafat Ali's go long, go deep vertical strategy — There's bootstrap, and there's “bootstrap plus.” Bootstrap plus is what digital media entrepreneur Rafat Ali calls his Skift modus operandi.
Discussion:
@raju


Brighton council rapped for attempt to charge £200 recording fee for interview — Council took an uncharacteristically hardline approach when a journalist asked to record an interview with musician Martyn Ware on its beach — It was supposed to be a harmless interview with a pop star …
Discussion:
@al_therrien


AnyClip lands $21M for targeting movie and TV clips to the right Web page — EXCLUSIVE: — Online ads in video clips can deliver the highest rates online, so the trick for marketers is to get the most traffic by delivering the right video to each viewer.
Discussion:
Multichannel News, Haaretz, Tubefilter, AdExchanger, Variety and The Times of Israel


Over 25 celebrities sign letter warning David Cameron that cuts to BBC would harm Britain's global standing — Leave the BBC alone, Hollywood stars and TV presenters tell David Cameron — JK Rowling, Judi Dench and Chris Evans among celebrities to sign letter telling the Prime Minister …
Discussion:
Guardian, Variety, @dannycohen, mirror, @lennyhenry, Daily Mail, @profbriancox, The Conversation, @telegraph, @rhonddabryant and @annadoble


Ex-BBC director general Lord Birt says cuts to BBC budget five years ago led to reduction in original UK content, expects new cuts will lead to further decline — Ex-BBC director general accuses government of ‘raiding finances’ — Lord Birt defends corporation's ability to make programmes …


Browser policies, boost in Google search rankings, better analytics are slowly pushing news organizations to adopt HTTPS for secure, encrypted connections — S is for “secure”: Why news organizations are ditching (or should ditch) HTTP for HTTPS — Visit the Washington Post homepage …


Flipboard's MAUs grew 75% from 40M in February to 70M in June after it launched on the web — Flipboard now has 70M monthly active users, says CEO Mike McCue — Flipboard's CEO Mike McCue today revealed that his digital magazine platform now counts 70 million monthly active users as of June 2015.


TiVo Adds AirPlay Support to Allow Streaming to Apple TV Via iOS Devices — TiVo today is announcing an update to its iOS app that adds AirPlay support to allow users to stream content to the Apple TV. The feature builds on previous support for streaming content to an iOS device from a TiVo box …
Discussion:
Digital Trends, The Verge, Engadget, Multichannel News and TechCrunch