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The Telegraph, a UK paper founded in 1855, reaches an in-principle agreement to be acquired by RedBird Capital Partners, a US firm that has invested in companies including Skydance Media, AC Milan, Fenway Sports Group and the Yankees Entertainment & Sports (“YES”) Network. RedBird is leading a consortium that also includes British investors. RedBird will serve as sole controlling owner of Telegraph Media Group (which includes the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph). One goal of the new ownership is to grow The Telegraph’s presence in the US. RedBird will also “remove barriers to growth and accelerate the transition to digital,” according to a press release. “RedBird Capital Partners have exciting growth plans that build on our success—and will unlock our full potential across the breadth of our business,” said Telegraph Media Group CEO Anna Jones.
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News/Media Alliance president and CEO Danielle Coffey has slammed Google for its new “A.I. mode,” which lets users interact with its search engine as if it were an A.I. chatbot, offering them information and answers to their queries minus the links provided in traditional Google search. “Links were the last redeeming quality of search that gave publishers traffic and revenue,” Coffey said in a statement. “Now Google just takes content by force and uses it with no return, the definition of theft. The DOJ remedies must address this to prevent continued domination of the internet by one company.”
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| Kimi Yoshino |
The Baltimore Banner editor-in-chief Kimi Yoshino is heading to the Washington Post, where she will start as managing editor on July 7. At the Post, Yoshino will oversee features, sports, local, investigations and data. The Banner now has the largest newsroom in Maryland. The platform won a Pulitzer Prize for local news earlier this month for a 2024 series, in partnership with the New York Times, on the opioid overdose crisis in Baltimore. “I think she’s going to bring a refreshing, creative, exciting approach to thinking about areas like features and sports,” said WaPo executive Matt Murray. “Thanks to The Banner, particularly, she understands the digitally evolving entrepreneurial state of the business.”
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
