This week’s announcement of the Washington Post’s sale to Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, was a stunner.
How the mighty have fallen (in value, at least).
Consider this. David Black bought the Honolulu Advertiser from Gannett in 2010 for a reported $125 million, which in today’s dollars would come to about $134 million. Bezos is getting the iconic Washington Post for less than twice that amount. That just seems amazing to me.
But this deal obviously says a lot not only about the future of this great newspaper, but the future of news more generally.
Here’s a collection of commentaries on the sale.
If you’ve got a favorite that’s not on this list, let us know by leaving a comment.
From the Daily Kos, lots of comments in one place: “Abbreviated pundit roundup: Bezos buys The Washington Post”
From xconomy.com: “Bezos, No Fan of Unions, Gets 1,200 Union Workers at Washington Post”
From the Newspaper Guild: “Guild Looks Forward to Working with Bezos at Post”
From the Washington Post: “Open letter to Jeff Bezos” by Gene Weingarten.
From Poynter.org: “How Bezos, in his first memo to Washington Post staff, achieved believable optimism”
From The New Yorker: “Donald Graham’s Choice”
From Columbia Journalism Review: “Jeff Bezos’s landmark purchase of the Washington Post: We’ve now officially entered the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse—for good or ill”
From Neiman Journalism Lab: “The newsonomics of Jeff Bezos Buying the Washington Post”
From Business Insider: “Here’s Why I Think Jeff Bezos Bought The Washington Post“
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The fact is that The WaPo news product deteriorated so much in the past decade that he’s not getting much.
The Kaplan scandals, getting caught pimping access to public officials in the Graham home, ongoing labor tensions and an increasingly nonconservative pro war editorial page are just the most glaring examples.
It’s an open secret that staff morale is in the toilet. Watergate glory days were 40 years ago.
I wish Jeff Bezos great good luck. He can’t make The WaPo any worse.
This marks the end of an era. As soon as news orgs lost the semi-monopoly on distribution, their profit margins and models were numbered. I am hopeful there are new models, but probably nothing on the scale of past newspaper businesses.
Perhaps WaPo might become just a trifle more fair and balanced in its news reportage and editorial viewpoint. I’ve heard that The Washington Times and the Washington Examiner (free in newsracks on the street) are taking readership away from WaPo
Perhaps, but certainly not because they are more balanced.
If true, that’s a terribly depressing development.
A skeptical view.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/08/bezos-and-the-washington-post-a-skeptical-view.html
Anyone heard from John Temple?
John Temple opined on the WaPo sale:
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Washington-Post-sale-not-an-inside-the-Beltway-4711443.php?t=aaa913bc81cefdcb88
Follow him here: https://twitter.com/jtemplejrnalist/
According to the “real” world of financial metrics, Jeff Bezos got ripped off when he purchased The Washington Post this week, spending almost four times what the newspaper is actually worth.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/08/jeff-bezos-paid-friendship-premium-washington-post/68070/
“What did Bezos actually buy?” from techcrunch: http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/what-did-bezos-actually-buy/
How do you see this different than sale of Boston Globe (or dumping of it) by NY Times at a fraction of what it was acquired for not long ago?
Hugh, did someone say this was different from the dumping of the Boston Globe? Please clarify if possible.
Bringing together two threads from this blog, here’s a podcast interview with Nate Silver of 538.com, Malcom Gladwell (Tipping Point, Blink, the New Yorker) and Bill Simmons, founder of the journalism/pop culture/sports site Grantland.com, which may serve as a model for 538.com: http://t.co/mFQd23zOnK
The first 40 minutes are spent discussing Jeff Bezos and Washington Post and what Silver envisions for 538.com’s collaboration with ABC and ESPN. The next 40 minutes are a fascinating discussion of performance enhancing drugs in sports.
I hope he let’s them use “Redskins” in the sports section.
Here’s my favorite. Bezos bought the paper accidently by clicking on the Buy Now button:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/08/amazon-founder-says-he-clicked-on-washington-post-by-mistake.html
Read this one:
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2013/08/uncomfortable_facts_a.php