Jeff Bezos Buys the Washington Post 150
schwit1 writes with word that Jeff Bezos decided to buy a news paper. Quoting the Washington Post: "The Washington Post Co. has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family's stewardship of one of America's leading news organizations after four generations. Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world's richest men, will pay $250 million in cash for The Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses. Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase; Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days. The Post Co. will change to a new, still-undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without The Post thereafter."
The WaPo Labs team (including CmdrTaco) were not part of the deal, but from the sound of it they will remain part of The Post Co. and haven't been axed.
I choose not to be cynical (Score:5, Interesting)
They made more money than they knew what to do with, and quite a few of them have decided to take that wad and make a mark on the world with it.
I have no f'in idea if Elon will die on Mars, if Bill will eradicate Malaria, or if Jeff can generate unique editorial content to shape his country - but there's a little part of me that's just screaming 'yes'. He's not done it to make money, he's done it because he wants to - god knows, but I want to see what happens when journalists have a platform, the prestige and a backer with large piles of fuck-you-world money.
I just have a feeling that this is a bigger deal than Murdoch buying MySpace for twice the money.
Coming Soon! (Score:4, Interesting)
One-click micro-transaction articles. :P
Re: Haha, poor Taco (Score:1, Interesting)
False. My aspergers is not that severe, it is that awesome.
Re:Better than nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago when the Times bought the Boston Globe a friend and I mused that they could probably give every subscriber an e-reader that updates on a cellular network and/or WiFi and dispense with the dead tree stuff altogether. Of course, old people and some old-at-heart young people still love dead trees, so you sell your press operations with a long-term leaseback on the capacity. If you really execute well, you could even have had a repository for other published works on the same e-reader, and you could make a killing selling people content on their "free" tablet.
The thing that I find amazing is that Bezos is the one to launch a successful e-reader, and he did it the hard way! No subscription base to start from, no content to sell initially. Bezos had to convince people to buy the damn things at or above cost, not get them for free with a subscription they were already paying for. He had some huge disadvantages, but he wasn't stuck in the dark ages, and new he is buying the newspapers with his pocket change... just for his amusement. Adapt or die, indeed.
Re:Better than nothing, but not nearly enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you looked at the state of modern "journalism" in the US? It's a travesty, worse than the official government newspapers of many countries, today's "journalists" are essentially stenographers for the PTB. In many cases what is printed is nothing more than a slightly re-worded version of the official press release. In some cases they don't even bother with a re-write, and yes, I'm referring to "articles" printed in the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times and Chicago Tribune. (Still better than the "news stories" written, recorded, and distributed free of charge by industry and government organizations and broadcast on cable TV, but not much.)
Bezos lacks an understanding of how the world works? What planet are you living on? Here on Earth his company has operations in over 80 countries, is at the leading edge of the cloud computing revolution, has created several different markets for goods and services that never previously existed, has a logistics system that spans the planet, and generates more profit than the tax revenue of most countries.
You object that newspaper owners need to do things like get people interested in how the government works, reveal the reasons for the official spin on certain stories, and the like. Good points, but the CURRENT ownership isn't doing any of those things, and in fact has a history of cooperating with propaganda operations against US citizens dating back to the 1950s. Don't forget that Phil Graham freaking **RAN** the Project Mockingbird for the CIA.
All in all, I don't think that Bezos can do a worse job of running the Post than the Grahams currently are doing. At worst he might bankrupt it a few years earlier, at best he might make it into the sort of newspaper it always claimed to be.
Re:good for journalism (Score:3, Interesting)
The Washington Post, the NYT, and the rest of the major news sources bend over backwards to not piss off the PTB and jeopardize their access. The NYT was one of the first to 'embed' (more like 'in bed') reporters with military units in exchange for printing Pentagon news releases unedited as "news stories". They regularly print CIA disinformation in exchange for "exclusive" interviews with important politicians (a practice which is entirely illegal when the propaganda is directed at US citizens, BTW). Project Mockingbird was headquartered at the Washington Post, and counted its largest membership at the NYT.
They are occasionally guilty of printing the truth on controversial topics like AGW and international money laundering, and I suppose that could be seen as liberal. It's too bad you've swallowed the neocon bait hook, line and sinker. Hopefully you're less gullible on other topics.