Mediagazer: In a letter, several Democrats serving as their state's top election officials ask Meta to repeal a policy allowing ads that claim the 2020 election was stolen (Christina A. Cassidy/Associated Press)

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Sources: the expectation at Paramount Global is that neither of the two offers in play, Skydance-RedBird and Sony Pictures-Apollo, will come to fruition — After months of M&A talks, Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone might be going it alone after all.

Discussion: @willsun_1, Rich Greenfield on LinkedIn, Variety, Reuters, CNBC, Quartz and The Wrap

New York Times:

Sources: Sony Pictures and Apollo Global formally express interest in acquiring Paramount for ~$26B; Paramount's negotiating period with Skydance ends May 3 — Paramount has been exploring a potential deal for months, talking to suitors including Skydance, producer of “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Tom McArthur / BBC:

RSF publishes its World Press Freedom Index and places Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in the top three, the US down 10 spots at 55, and Eritrea in last place — Gaza is one of the deadliest places in the world to be a journalist, according to Reporters Without Borders

Discussion: Voice of America, The Guardian, Press Gazette, Al Jazeera, @voanews, Reporters Without Borders, Euractiv, Journalism.co.uk, @emilybell, Newslaundry, @michellemanafy@journa.host and @farhip

Christina A. Cassidy / Associated Press:

In a letter, several Democrats serving as their state's top election officials ask Meta to repeal a policy allowing ads that claim the 2020 election was stolen — Several Democrats serving as their state's top election officials have sent a letter to the parent company of Facebook …

Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:

Elon Musk says he wants Grok to create news summaries by relying solely on X posts, without looking at article text, and improved story citations are coming — Musk emails with details on AI-powered news inside X. An AI bot will summarize news and commentary, sometimes looking through tens of thousands of posts per story.

Discussion: Business Insider, @nxthompson, @chrismoranuk, @xeng, @firerock31@threads.net, @reneeleegreco@threads.net, @hshaban, @hshaban, @hshaban and @iethics, more at Techmeme »

Financial Times:

An interview with UK culture secretary Lucy Frazer on blocking RedBird IMI's Telegraph takeover bid, plans to cap foreign state ownership at 5%, and more — Culture secretary says UK ‘not stopping’ foreign investment as she defends blocking sale to Abu Dhabi-backed company

Discussion: City A.M.

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

The Guardian outlines plans for a “small number of voluntary redundancies”, says it is 60% funded by readers, and had a £39m loss in the year to March 2024 — Editor Katharine Viner said the business foresees revenue pressures continuing into the next year at least.

Discussion: Telegraph and The Drum

Andrew Marchand / The Athletic:

Sources: MLB is in advanced talks to make Roku the new home for Sunday morning baseball this season, in what would be Roku's first major live rights deal — Major League Baseball and Roku are in advanced talks to make the service the new home for Sunday morning baseball this season …

Discussion: The Streamable, Awful Announcing, @andrewmarchand, @keshavbhat, @svg_brandon, @tvmojoe, The Desk, Bleacher Report, Barrett Media and Sports Media Watch

Steven Levy / Wired:

Jeff Lawson's Global Tetrahedron plans membership tiers for the Onion and doesn't plan to put up a hard paywall as it moves away from G/O's ad-focused approach — Entrepreneur Jeff Lawson's plan to revive venerable satirical outlet The Onion involves borrowing from the playbook of the founders of WhatsApp.

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

Fubo reports 1.51M FuboTV subscribers at the end of Q1, down from 1.61M in Q4, revenue up 24% YoY to $394M, and a $56.1M loss, down from $83.6M a year ago — The streaming platform shrunk its losses on higher subscription and advertising revenue. — Sports streaming platform FuboTV …

Discussion: The Desk, StreamTV Insider, MediaPost, Next TV and The Streamable

Clare Malone / New Yorker:

A look at Hunterbrook, whose hedge fund makes trades based on investigations by its newsroom, and well-connected founders Sam Koppelman and Nathaniel Horwitz — The hybrid media-finance company wants to monetize investigative journalism in the public interest. Is it a visionary game changer or a cynical ploy?

Discussion: @sammykoppelman, @pkafka, @pkafka, @bgrueskin, @claremalone, Business Insider and Talking Biz News

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

Sources: the NBA is close to signing deals that would pay the league ~$76B over 11 years, including $2.6B and $1.8B a year from Disney and Amazon, respectively — The National Basketball Association is close to signing new long-term broadcasting agreements that would pay the league …

Discussion: The Wrap, Sports Media Watch, @lucas_shaw, @lucas_shaw and @dylanbyers