Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/washington-post-to-be-sold-to-jeff-bezos/2013/08/05/ca537c9e-fe0c-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html

by Volscio • 13 years ago

606 230 13 years ago

washingtonpost.com

tptacek• 13 years ago

I presume this means he hasn't bought the WaPo company, and thus not other assets like Slate.

Volscio2• 13 years ago

It looks like it includes "affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co." (see http://www.washpostco.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=62487&p=irol-landi... for a list)

(see showherst's comment for accuracy)

showerst2• 13 years ago

You're looking at the site for the Washington Post Company, not the Washington Post newspaper (confusing, I know).

EDIT: Nope, just the newspapers. See the press release -

The transaction covers The Washington Post and other publishing businesses, including the Express newspaper, The Gazette Newspapers, Southern Maryland Newspapers, Fairfax County Times, El Tiempo Latino and Greater Washington Publishing.

Slate magazine, TheRoot.com and Foreign Policy are not part of the transaction and will remain with The Washington Post Company, as will the WaPo Labs and SocialCode businesses, the Company’s interest in Classified Ventures and certain real estate assets, including the headquarters building in downtown Washington, DC. The Washington Post Company, which also owns Kaplan, Post–Newsweek Stations and Cable ONE, will be changing its name in connection with the transaction; no new name has yet been announced

epistasis2• 13 years ago

No slate.com, though there are many other assets. Check out page 4:

The deal does not include the company’s headquarters on 15th St. NW in Washington (the building has been for sale since February), or Foreign Policy magazine, Slate.com, the Root.com, the WaPo Labs digital-development operation or Post-owned land along the Potomac River in Alexandria.

showerst2• 13 years ago

The headquarters building has actually been for sale anyway for a few months.

epistasis2• 13 years ago

“There would be change with or without new ownership. But the key thing I hope people will take away from this is that the values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners.”

The Washington Post is an important institution for the USA, and comments like this make it seem that Bezos will be a good steward. I hope, and am fairly certain, that this is a good thing for everyone involved.

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

Apart from believing a public statement, do you have any reason to believe he will be a good steward of a journalistic entity?

As far as I know, he has no experience in reporting the unbiased truth and a lot of experience in selling stuff.

bennyg2• 13 years ago

As far as I know, he has expertise in launching innovative technology at scale - something the Post desperately needs to stay afloat. Removing the politics of the business and replacing with innovation would do the whole country some good.

walid5• 13 years ago

He is the only loser if he sinks the WaPo. So in that light, Bezos has the incentive to at least maintain the paper's standing.

qq66• 13 years ago

Most business owners try to maximize profit. Bezos is clearly not doing this for the money, so the paper will be less beholden to corporate/revenue interests and more beholden to Bezos himself. How that works out depends on how close to Plato's "benevolent dictator" Bezos ends up being; the statement says that he's planning to try.

duaneb2• 13 years ago

As far as I know, he has no experience in reporting the unbiased truth and a lot of experience in selling stuff.

Yea, I hope his boss doesn't put him on a reporting job.

philwelch6• 13 years ago

There's a natural conflict of interest when someone with large commercial interests outside the media also owns parts of the media.

tcpekin• 13 years ago

If Bezos integrates this with Amazon, how could this change the newspaper with respect to the Kindle and e-publishing? Could this change daily print media?

freehunter• 13 years ago

The article says that Amazon will have no role in the purchase. Time will tell if that's true, though. I'd love to have my Kindle be both my book library and an automatically updated copy of the newspaper every morning. Having tried Kindle newspapers, I've found them to be quite lacking (and pretty expensive). Some Kindle newspapers are even missing entire sections of the print version!

eurleif2• 13 years ago

In this context, I think "Amazon will have no role in the purchase" just means that Bezos is buying WaPo with his own money, and he will own it personally. I don't think it precludes him from making deals between the two companies.

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

automatically updated copy of the newspaper

I have never really been drawn to the Kindle for books (except the large-but-expensive model) but it would be ideal for daily news - in fact the screen seems to pick up where newsprint left off. I'm old-fashioned enough to even like the idea of having everything in black & white.

rurban• 13 years ago

Welcome to micromanagement to its extreme

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

Great. Now it will be delivered in a 6 cubic foot box.

psbp• 13 years ago

I'm not sure if this is good news. Doesn't this portend further monopolistic control over publishing and distribution? Amazon isn't known to fairly and openly distribute its content.

josh2600• 13 years ago

How does this mesh with his investment in Business Insider?

Is Jeff pursuing a content strategy? Washington Post for investigation and Business Insider for Biz news would be great.

Personally I'd rather have Jeff Bezos than Rupert Murdoch, but maybe that's just me...

RandallBrown• 13 years ago

Amazon is moving towards funding their own TV shows, so it wouldn't be too surprising if Bezos was trying to generate his own content in other mediums as well.

untog4• 13 years ago

Worth noting though, that Bezos, and not Amazon, bought WaPo.

walid5• 13 years ago

@untog

Hmm! Didn't notice that, interesting.

threeseed5• 13 years ago

Seriously don't EVER compare Bezos and Murdoch.

Murdoch is easily one of the most evil people to have ever walked on this planet. He enabled the Iraq war which has seen a mass loss of life for no real gain. He supported the widespread hacking of UK citizens. His meddling in politics and elections in the UK, US and Australia is unprecedented, brazen and has unquestionably undermined democracy.

Even now he flew over an Editor from the NY Post to Australia to influence the election here who already is shocking the political scene here.

newbie12• 13 years ago

Absurd to blame Murdoch for a war that had majorities of Congress vote for it. If any media outlet deserves some blame for Iraq, it was the New York Times. In any event, the Iraq war has saved lives compared to the sanctions regime that it replaced.

jessaustin8• 13 years ago

He supported the widespread hacking of UK citizens.

Yeah him and healthy majorities of both houses of Congress. Did Parliament not get the memo?

sien2• 13 years ago

Murdoch's papers supported Rudd in Australia when he won in 2007.

Was that undermining democracy?

minimaxir• 13 years ago

To put things into perspective, the $250M purchase price is lower than the purchase price of The Huffington Post at $315M.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/aol-huffington-post...

akiselev• 13 years ago

How long has Huffington Post been around?

The Washington Post seems to have an incredible reputation (especially if they really did break the Pentagon Papers and others) and be a fun purchase if you have f-you money.

tanzam75• 13 years ago

The Huffington Post does not have pension obligations, and it doesn't pay its reporters six-figure salaries and benefits. (Well, not most of them, anyway.)

willbill• 13 years ago

It doesn't do the same investigative reporting either.

mgaphysics• 13 years ago

Seems like he thought that the price was right for a publication with such a strong legacy, even if he doesn't have a grand plan for the immediate future. This sale was only offered to a very narrow pool of buyers, so I think that it was a very prudent purchase. He is friends with the previous ownership and undoubtedly felt that if he can preserve the publication in some shape or form, there is nothing but upside given the "drop in the bucket" price.

brown9-23• 13 years ago

I'm curious if Huffington could get the same price today.

sytelus• 13 years ago

I'm still amazed that as reputed institute as Washington Post where shapes opinion of millions of people could be bought out at 1/4th of the price of Instagram.

philwelch6• 13 years ago

They're completely different businesses. Huffington Post is a cross between a content farm, a bad women's magazine, and Daily Kos. The Washington Post is a newspaper.

kenshiro_o• 13 years ago

Hope Bezos revamps the site's design. It's quite ugly.

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

Looks like Bezos has a propaganda arm now.

I mean, sorry for the cynicism, but this is an obvious conflict of interest. Retail, distribution, infrastructure, and now politics & media.

The man can do what he wants but the public probably shouldn't applaud this.

toomuchtodo2• 13 years ago

I think he cares more about it being on the Kindle and the Fire than using it as his mouthpiece.

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

I agree, in the short run.

I suspect it's a power grab for influence in the long-term. Big media shapes the discourse, debate, and policy of the country. He can be a much more effective broker of business and societal matters now that he manages "the truth."

I think, at least :/

grimtrigger2• 13 years ago

Is there anyone rich enough to buy a newspaper who wouldn't have a conflict of interest? Is there any human alive who wouldn't have a conflict of interest?

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

Of course not.

Doesn't mean we can't raise awareness of it each time it happens. That is, not applaud powerful people getting even more powerful.

There are also alternative forms of ownership, but that's a more complex subject not fit for a message board.

walid5• 13 years ago

The man can do what he wants but the public probably shouldn't applaud this.

I kinda disagree with you on this one. Not only will something like the Kindle and Kindle apps benefit, but this is a huge win since the old style of media wasn't capable of figuring out how to stay in business. The reason why the Kindle, iTunes, Google Play or any other store is succeeding while the rest are failing is because all the rest didn't have monetized digital distribution mechanisms. All media was given out for free and now you can't stay in business if you decide to pay-wall your website. They weren't smart about it. However all other walled gardens are thriving because they are monetized from the get go and an effort has been made to make them simple to use.

The public is the winner here, and the Kindle. The only loser is probably B&N.

DamnYuppie• 13 years ago

The public loses when a news source losses all credibility for being unbiased. We need more news organizations that are doing real hard hitting journalism and fewer media mouth pieces...long term this is not a good thing...

jessaustin8• 13 years ago

All media was given out for free and now you can't stay in business if you decide to pay-wall your website. They weren't smart about it.

I submit that there was no possible set of actions the newspapers could have taken, including worldwide oligopolistic collusion, which could have produced a market in which any but a few "luxury" brands can charge media consumers directly. The basic service of telling us what happened over the last 12 hours is one that wants to be free.

untog4• 13 years ago

When he starts firing editors and controlling output, sure.

smackfu2• 13 years ago

Note that Amazon didn't buy the Washington Post.

wismer• 13 years ago

It would be naive to think that the paper will produce an article that disparages Amazon's labor and business practices, now that it is owned by the same man that is the CEO of Amazon. I'm not sure what his stake is in the company, but I assume it's significant to raise this issue.

notatoad2• 13 years ago

The same could be said about any prospective owner of a newspaper. Is Bezos owning media interests really worse than anybody else? I'd argue that a new entrant into news media is much preferable to further consolidation of media among the currently small set of big players in the industry.

philwelch6• 13 years ago

OK, the only ideal owners of a newspaper would be anthropologists from another planet who cared nothing about Earth affairs and only documented what they saw. But even failing that, you seem to see better journalism from competing groups of intellectually honest yet openly biased sources than from supposedly unbiased sources. With biased sources, you can just read every side and form your own opinion. With supposedly unbiased sources, you'd have to do the same thing anyway but it's much harder to figure out what their biases were to begin with.

And sure, people can be intellectually lazy and only read sources that they agree with, but the fallacy of unbiased journalism is that a handful of media outlets will end up providing that anyway, just with the illusion of impartiality.

adestefan• 13 years ago

You do realize that you're posting this comment on the propaganda arm of Y Combinator and PG right?

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

You're comparing HN to the Washington Post?

We happen to be a thoughtful community and a decent newsreader without (a lot of) hierarchy. If it migrates elsewhere, I will as well. I find many of Graham's old essays amusing in the abstract sense (they're Austrian Economics rehashed in the language of computer science), but question his intentions.

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

I'm kind of surprised, but this seems like the best possible direction for them. Sort of like Chris Hughes buying The New Republic, Bezos has the cash to give the Post breathing room to find a direction that will be profitable. And, ostensibly, he won't want to turn it into Buzzfeed.

larrys2• 13 years ago

"give the Post breathing room to find a direction that will be profitable"

Could be but I don't think that's the case. I think there is something else going on here either vanity or some underlying access or asset that provides much greater value to Bezos that has not much to do with Amazon either.

I mean if you have that much money you can afford to buy and have it lose money for years just for other valuable benefits and access. WP is a mouthpiece he could swing elections (influence is way beyond their circulation).

untog4• 13 years ago

I mean if you have that much money you can afford to buy and have it lose money for years just for other valuable benefits and access.

You can, but you can also believe in journalism and be willing to spend some of your money on keeping it alive.

Not sure we can really make an automatic judgement either way.

larrys2• 13 years ago

Announced after market close. Expecting NYT stock to rise quite a bit.

I was surprised when Jack Welsh (x GE) wanted to buy the Boston Globe (he backed out). He realized the the shine was one of the past. It's interesting that Bezos sees value here but I think the value is in the same sense taking a small part of his billions and buying something that is a legend. (After all rich people buy art and other trinkets because they can so why not a newspaper?).

adventured5• 13 years ago

I agree. Bezos is almost 50 years old now. What's the point of having $28 billion in assets if you can't do some interesting things with it (like Bezos Expeditions, the millennium clock, or retrieve the apollo engines).

aaronbrethorst2• 13 years ago

Bezos was probably feeling a bit left out of the 'Seattle Philanthropic Billionaire Boys Club.'

Although, to his credit, he and his wife did kick in $2.5mm to the Washington state marriage equality referendum last November: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/07/27/jeff-be...

blackaspen• 13 years ago

I don't see anyone majorly naysaying this move, but in case anyone does, remember that Jeff is smart. Very, very smart. I've heard him referenced to as "a hyper-intelligent alien who has only a tangential in human affairs" before. AMZN represents a bit of this.

My money's on Jeff - he's got something up his sleeve here.

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

Please stop with the nauseating idol-worship. He's a businessman trying to control more stuff and make more money.

adventured5• 13 years ago

Just because you don't find businessmen to be worthy of looking up, doesn't mean somebody else doesn't. There's plenty of room on HN for differing beliefs, even if you find it nauseating.

I regard earning money in a productive fashion and without the use of force to be one of the greatest things a person can do. That's my belief, and I don't force anybody else to agree with me.

ForrestN2• 13 years ago

Just because he's smart doesn't mean he's benevolent, right? I would never argue that he's stupid but I'd be curious to know if anyone has any insight into the extent to which he's likely to be making this purchase in order to gain influence of some kind.

adventured5• 13 years ago

Clearly with a $28 billion net worth (#15 in the world), and the head of Amazon.com, he is not lacking in influence. He already has that in spades. There isn't anybody in Washington that won't take his call.

There are radically cheaper ways to have influence. He could set up a PAC, seed it with $50 million, and directly buy whatever influence he needs.

The thing about buying one of the few really national papers and slanting its coverage: your competitors will have a field day and it won't be long before your paper is a joke that nobody takes seriously.

I don't think he has much room to abuse this for influence.

pclark• 13 years ago

what does "… alien who has only a tangential in human affairs" even mean? he owns a huge commerce company and just bought a newspaper. isn't he trying to launch humans into space? didn't he recover the rockets from one of humanities greatest space exploits? doesn't he have a famous laugh?

jessaustin8• 13 years ago

I was picturing Dr. Manhattan.

saraid2165• 13 years ago

It means that the quoted person doesn't think human beings are smart.

gohrt• 13 years ago

It is from a Steve Yegge article accusing Bezos of treating his staff like assembly line machines.

squozzer• 13 years ago

I will celebrate by watching "Citizen Kane."

shawndumas• 13 years ago

one page view

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/washington-post-to-be...

hokietriz• 13 years ago

I want the addition of a Single Page button to be one of his first accomplishments.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

He'll just patent it as 1-click viewing.

badclient• 13 years ago

The first is the courage to say wait, be sure, slow down, get another source. Real people and their reputations, livelihoods and families are at stake.

A 1000 times. At least it won't turn into the next PandoDaily(and its BeachMint fiasco).

patmcguire• 13 years ago

Is this in the category of buying sports teams, or does he expect to make money off of it?

adventured5• 13 years ago

A little of both I suspect. The Washington Post can generate a very modest profit if it's well run. It's around 1/4th to 1/5th the size of the New York Times.

The question would seem to be, whether Bezos intends to run a tight profitable ship, or if he is willing to forgo the profits for a larger staff. I'm hoping he has something creative in mind, a new business model that isn't free+ads or just a copy of what the NYT is doing.

WaPo is #8 by its daily circulation in the US, and #4 for its Sunday circulation.

adamtj• 13 years ago

I bet he puts up a paywall, but offers free access to Prime members. Combined with instant video and other benefits, Prime starts to look pretty attractive, even without the free shipping. But once you've got the free fast shipping, it's much easier to justify buying stuff from Amazon instead.

miles• 13 years ago

Few people were aware that a sale was in the works for the paper, whose reporters have broken such stories as the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandals and disclosures about the National Security Administration’s surveillance program in May.

Claiming credit for the NSA story seems disingenuous at best, especially given their antagonism towards Snowden:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/06/how-washingt...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130702/11474423694/washin...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/washing...

EDIT: While acknowledging the WaPo's significant contributions in the early 70s, it seems like they lost their way somewhere along the line:

Washington Post Kills Account of Its Failures in Iraq Reporting and Runs a Defense Instead http://gawker.com/5992158/washington-post-kills-account-of-i...

untog4• 13 years ago

Can we have just one thread in HN that doesn't mention Snowden?

walid5• 13 years ago

Bradley Manning!

anologwintermut2• 13 years ago

I'd settle for a top comment that doesn't mention Snowden.

taopao• 13 years ago

Can't have a 2013 HN discussion thread without "Snowden" or "Google Reader". It's a machine-verifiable stamp of authenticity.

samstave• 13 years ago

I am only upvoting you because I find your comment actually funny!

(Please do not get rid of any Snowden comments/posts on HN until the Police State is dismantled, hopefully by mid-next week.

willurd• 13 years ago

Please redirect your shock toward the US government.

And by the way, at the time of writing 27 of the top 30 articles don't mention Snowden in the comments, so...

philwelch6• 13 years ago

I miss when people would submit articles about Erlang to flood out the politics.

pearjuice• 13 years ago

Just like we cannot have Bootstrap threads without mentioning Foundation.

obstacle1• 13 years ago

It's a relevant point.

Feel free to bury your head in the sand.

StavrosK• 13 years ago

Isn't this sort of Godwinning the thread? He didn't mention Snowden just for the sake of it, he was making a valid point.

mpyne• 13 years ago

Well if Snowden had given WaPo something other than a "publish in 48 hours" ultimatum there may have been less 'antagonism'. I'll say that the Washington Post Express I've been reading on the Metro was certainly not antagonistic to Snowden.

brown9-23• 13 years ago

It's worthwhile to point out that the people who write editorials and opinion columns for the paper are often firewalled somewhat from the actual journalists, so you can't really reduce it to a single belief that the entire organization has.

Especially a paper like the Washington Post which has a ridiculous number of opinion writers on staff.

sampsonjs• 13 years ago

I think the WaPo should start a section that's full of Hustler style porn. When people complain about porn in their Washington Post, they can just say "That's a separate department!". TLDR: if you disgrace your sub-organization, you disgrace the entire organization.

pbreit• 13 years ago

Why would something that's plainly true be "disingenuous at best". The WP broke the story.

room271• 13 years ago

The Guardian broke most of the leaks.

jellicle• 13 years ago

Nope. Snowden gave the Post some of his info (the infamous slides), they refused to publish it, he gave it to the Guardian, who did publish it, and the Washington Post followed with their story one day later.

Glenn Greenwald broke the story in the Guardian.

pc86• 13 years ago

Didn't Snowden talk to The Guardian?

threeseed5• 13 years ago

Sorry but did you even bother to read the links you posted ? Because the behaviour of Washington Post is completely legitimate and common sense. Of course they aren't just got to post the PRISM presentation verbatim without redaction.

From reading this I can understand the antagonism towards Snowden. He deserves it.

rpgmaker• 13 years ago

They deserve credit, they DID publish one of the first stories about it. The editorials page has been really shitty about the whole subject but in their defense it was already a cesspool before Snowden's NSA leaks.

adventured5• 13 years ago

I'm a bit surprised Buffett didn't make a play for that asset, particularly given his recent expeditions in buying more newspapers. Perhaps he regards Bezos as a better long term steward given the age difference. At the least Buffett had to give his blessing to this deal, and absolutely knew about it and chose not to outbid Bezos.

prewett• 13 years ago

He played that asset a long time ago: Berkshire bought about 20% in 1973, and was on the board until 2011. But yes, he absolutely knew about this.

He paid $11 million and is getting about $44 million after 40 years of holding it. That's kind of lousy rate of return, and the newspaper business has some question marks. So I can see why he might not be interested in buying it. And if Bezos is buying the paper for civic-minded reasons, I could see Buffet encouraging him.

jsyedidia• 13 years ago

The Washington Post is only a small piece of the WPO company, which has a market cap of $4.4 Billion. So by my math Buffett paid $11 million for a 20% share of a company that's now worth $4.4 Billion, or a net return of 80 times over 40 years, which isn't up to Buffett's usual returns, but not too bad.

zpk4• 13 years ago

Another newspaper owned by a corporation. I'm sure this is going to end well.

Can't wait for it to become another CNBC infomercial.

asmithmd1• 13 years ago

Jeff Bezos bought the Post personally - Amazon did not buy it.

zpk4• 13 years ago

Ah true, but the underlying effect will be the same.

superuser22• 13 years ago

What did you imagine newspapers were owned by?

zpk4• 13 years ago

Not by massive corporations or their ceos.

crashoverdrive• 13 years ago

Bezos goal may be to force users to more digital media. Amazon has been trying to push its publications by forcing book print companies out of the market, by cornering newspapers as well, Amazon could make it self the centralized location for e-media.

guard-of-terra• 13 years ago

- Mr. Bezos, we've bought Washington Post as you ordered.

- Good. I hope it's a fresh issue?

- ...issue!?

w-m• 13 years ago

It.. seemed neater.

Kurtz79• 13 years ago

Lots of cynicism around here.

Nobody is saying that Bezos will be a steward of good journalism (I can't see him doing much worse as the head of a major news medium than Rupert Murdoch, though) and has reasons to buy the paper that go beyond, ultimately, making more money.

But from a technology enthusiast standpoint, it can't be denied that the guy has a amazing track record of innovating the sectors he has been involved in, and personally I'm curious to see how he will tackle this one.

The main takeaway from the story, in my opinion, is seeing a steady trend of the "new" technology companies trying to get in a position of influence, like Facebook interested in getting into politics, Google having already plenty of lobbying/funding activities, and now Amazon getting its own paper...

northwest2• 13 years ago

I can't see him doing much worse as the head of a major news medium than Rupert Murdoch

Worst compliment ever.

brymaster• 13 years ago

Off-topic but I've noticed you've racked up a lot of karma in a short period of time:

created: 9 days ago

karma: 549

avg: 2.34

Has to be a record.

pla3rhat3r• 13 years ago

Does anyone believe or trust in the American propaganda machine (i.e. mainstream media)? We live in a world of stories that seem to be in a perpetual loop. When we eliminate news for the sake of ratings or the number of papers/magazines sold, then we return to a time when the media will resume reporting on things that matter. The "news" in the US is a dumbed down version of TMZ and that's being nice.

tnuc• 13 years ago

Lots of people love the american media. They usually believe it by reading news from one side of the political spectrum and confusing it with fact.

Half of what I read is bull and the other half is shit.

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

I think this is a bold move by Bezos. One of the interesting data points in the world of Journalism has been the transition of the New York Time from mostly paper to being mostly digital. Something Jeff is profoundly aware of.

Every morning while I eat my breakfast I download the Wall Street Journal and times to my iPad, and on the train to work scan them and this weeks Economist for interesting stories of the day, combined with this month's Scientific American, Smithsonian, and Science News.

If I could use Evernote with those "publications" on the iPad I could be very efficient in my collection of various inputs on news of the day. For now, I'm constrained to making notes to myself in my notebook.

To pull an interesting analogy here, Google sees everything through the lens of "You will be connected 100% of the time to the network." which is their future point that they are building systems around, sometimes today they seem ungainly or even useless when no network is available. Jeff (and Amazon) seems to see everything through the lens of "You will consume all of your media on a tablet like device." and building around the complete media experience there.

foobarqux4• 13 years ago

I think it is a run-of-the-mill acquisition of power by a member of the super rich.

How much is it worth to have the WaPo as a mouthpiece?

nwzpaperman3• 13 years ago

It's $250mm for the WaPo brand. Empowering the ordinary citizen to contribute to the global pool of community information is the future. Blogging was the first attempt in this direction, but it has failed because the distributed nature of blogs doesn't support content discovery.

As far as I'm concerned, AMZN already has plenty of brand recognition to talk about any technological innovation they might integrate with the WaPo brand. I look forward to AMZN playing its cards in the space and seeing if they can compete against a truly focused and unencumbered competitor.

Production is easy, discovery and profitability are the problems.

Best wishes, Bezos!

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

"Production is easy, discovery and profitability are the problems."

I agree, and that is what makes this so interesting. Lets say you had a 'kindle store' like thing but it was "News for You", and it had a search box kind of like a search engine box, but you could pull up your Kindle, any time something was happening, and type "Boston Bombing" into the search box, And poof you'd get all the stories about the Boston Bombing available to read after downloading them over the cellular network. Can you buy "inches of news" like you buy cellular minutes? With a roll over plan?

There are some tremendously disruptive businesses here.

crusso3• 13 years ago

The article mentions that this is a Bezos-only deal, no Amazon involvement.

austenallred5• 13 years ago

Journalistic institutions, in an effort to inform the masses, perform three critical functions: 1. Production of information, 2. Curation of information 3. Verification of information. A more colloquial way to say that might be "creation, curation, and fact-checking."

So far the creation aspect is almost entirely dominated by ordinary citizens. With nearly everyone carrying internet-connected devices for photo, video and text input, there's simply no way a news organization, no matter how large or well funded, can keep up.

Where "News" is still lacking now has more to do with the latter two points. The best content is invariably on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, etc. but finding that needle in the haystack that is a news event is borderline impossible for the "ordinary citizen." Even the major news organizations are largely poring over the data that comes in and trying to find the best stuff. The third part - the fact checking- not many have time for anymore. The world moves so quickly that verifying accuracy is much less beneficial than seeking the next scoop. News orgs can move fast, make mistakes, and issue retractions later if they were wrong. Or they can just say "we're getting reports that..." (Translation: "We're watching Twitter and people are saying...")

I truly believe that creating a system that allows ordinary citizens to curate (vote on) and fact check the firehose of information flowing through social media networks is the bright, sustainable, profitable (!) future of journalism.

Full disclosure: I've been building and testing a product for a year that does precisely that, so I'm a little bit biased.

atmosx• 13 years ago

If that's the case, why does the name change? IMHO that was in order for the old ownership to provide some dignity to the old Post (which broke many world-wide level news over the years, i.e. Watergate) from thew new ownership, in case J. Bezos turns the venerated newspaper into a trash magazine.

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

This is not a power grab - this is the natural effect of gravity - the last twenty years saw an almost cataclismlc shift in strategic leverage from non-Internet to Internet businesses, and now all that cash is exerting its pull - and power is sliding over the table.

Just watch as the rest of the baby boomer generation die off and hand over their assets.

foobarqux4• 13 years ago

What are you saying? That WaPo does not have strategic leverage or that the demographics of the owner-class is changing?

lifeisstillgood2• 13 years ago

The latter

ferdo• 13 years ago

I think that this signals that Bezos is going into the fish and chips business.

serverascode• 13 years ago

For some reason this blows my mind. Man, it would be so cool to own the paper that paid the guys that broke Watergate. But it seems so...weird that it would be Bezos. I'd love to see the first meeting.

salemh• 13 years ago

Interesting. Warren Buffet has always gobbled up a large chunk of newspapers (albeit not directly as an individual (ala Bezos), rather, through Berkshire Hathaway): http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-13/buffett-poised-to-a...

Buffett, 81, has been expanding Berkshire’s media operations in the past year as he wagers that publications focused on local communities can withstand the shift of readers and advertisers to the Internet. The billionaire’s firm bought the publisher of his hometown paper, the Omaha World-Herald Co., in December, and acquired 63 daily and weekly newspapers from Media General Inc. (MEG) for $142 million last month.

Local papers vs something larger like WaPo.

And note: While Buffett’s firm holds the largest stake in Washington Post Co. (WPO) and has shares of Gannett Co., he said Berkshire is less likely to make more stock market investments in the industry.

saraid2165• 13 years ago

I've always understood Buffett's purchases to be meant to reinforce local papers against consolidation.

joonix• 13 years ago

It's a trendy thing amongst billionaires lately. Even in Australia they are trying it. I think there may have been a consensus of some sort made at one of the many "billionaire conferences" that happens every year.

aridiculous7• 13 years ago

Or they recognize, as they should, the role that media plays in society. Being in the media oligarchy expands your range of influence.

rgbrgb• 13 years ago

Of all of the big Tech companies to have deep ties with a national news source, Amazon seems like a decent fit. They were one of the first retailers to allow negative reviews on their site and have a culture that allows employees to make decisions that prioritize long term thinking over short term profits ("willingness to be misunderstood for long periods of time"[1]). This type of thinking is really important in an often buzzy industry that relies on advertising for revenue.

[1] http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2013/01/jeff-bezos-on-leading-...

mehmehshoe• 13 years ago

Meanwhile the Koch brothers want to buy the LA times...I will grab my popcorn and wait for the hilarity.

Eliezer• 13 years ago

Let's all hope that this day we have witnessed the birth of the anti-Murdoch.

photorized• 13 years ago

I am convinced one of his next moves is going to be brick and mortar. He has already tested the concept of free showrooms for Amazon via the likes of Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, etc - so it's only natural to move back to the physical world.

cpr• 13 years ago

The WaPo is just a prominent member of what Joe Sobran so elegantly called "the Hive"--people who all think pretty much alike ("enlightened liberalism", in their own minds), know only other members of the Hive, and only read each other. (The NYT being the other major member.)

And nothing will change.

augustocallejas• 13 years ago

From the article:

Weymouth said the decision to sell The Post sprang from annual budget discussions she had with Graham late last year. “We talked about whether [The Washington Post Co.] was the right place to house The Post,” she said. “If journalism is the mission, given the pressures to cut costs and make profits, maybe [a publicly traded company] is not the best place for The Post.”

Does this mean that the future of much of journalism is in the non-profit sector (think NPR)?

ommunist• 13 years ago

Was it what he negotiated at Bilderberg club this summer in Watford, UK?

deepblueq• 13 years ago

There's now a box in the lower-left informing me that I can view 20 articles in a month before they'll put up a paywall. I don't recall ever seeing anything about a paywall before.

If that's actually new, Bezos sure didn't waste any time monetizing things.

rogerchucker• 13 years ago

I think Jeff Bezos will be bigger than Steve Jobs one day.

MaysonL• 13 years ago

Guess what the next freebie for Amazon Prime subscribers will be.

jhuckestein• 13 years ago

It's noteworthy that the Washington Post sells for $250MM, compared to for example OMGPOP which sold for $200MM last year.

mkr-hn• 13 years ago

I remember reading a story about how he turned Amazon into a platform to make it more nimble and faced a lot of resistance, and it gave me a good impression of his leadership abilities. This purchase is probably a good thing.

peterwwillis• 13 years ago

I was thinking about this when I heard the announcement, and I thought, what a disruptor! Here are some ways that a newspaper (with "internet content") would be superior than digital media:

  * Much larger viewing area than an iPad
  * It's more compact than an iPad
  * It's cheaper than an iPad
  * It's disposable
  * It's recyclable
  * You can use it in places digital media aren't allowed
    (security buildings, airplane takeoff/landing, subway, etc)
  * You don't have to know how to use it
  * You don't need a data plan or need to use a computer
  * You don't have to recharge it

All you have to do is create targeted content and sell to places that digital media doesn't work as well. Fill with context-specific in-line ads and make it more interesting to the target market audience. (And probably figure out a new way to print it so that makes monetary sense)

e3pi• 13 years ago

"...The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment.

"There is no map" -from a proven visionary worth $25.2B, leaves a whole lot of successful innovations and failures open.

Tloewald• 13 years ago

I hope the plan involves taking WaPo's news gathering expertise and delivering seamlessly through all possible channels -- don't just fix a newspaper, fix the news.

Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos

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