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Jeff Bezos Buys the Washington Post
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 think it would be fun to run a newspaper"--Charles Foster Kane
What's next? Will the mountain side he owns in West Texas for the eternal clock being built by the Long Now Foundation also include a castle?
Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
"Woohoo! I'm going to work at Amazon! Free Prime!"
"So, wait, what, it's not Amazon? Just the owner of Amazon? Okay! Still pretty great!"
"Ummm... guys... it says he's not buying us... we're just left to rot here on the carcass. Anyone known any good jobs sites?"
He paid more than $25 for the newspaper. I hope he got free shipping.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Downhill now. Not that it was at great heights. But more safe to ignore.
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
And i will still rape his data - A win win situation indeed.
The Post has been lagging for years and is often accused of a neo-con bias.
Once it was on par with the New York Times as a 'national newspaper of record' but since the 2000s it has been more like the Wall Street Journal.
I think this sale will be good for journalism because Bezos will bring fresh hype and generate discussion of media ownership and what defines a 'profitable' newspaper. Bezos has shown to have the capacity to see past the horizons that usually limit tech companies...even 'innovative' ones like Apple.
For me Amazon always works. Their mp3's have always had non-DRM options. Amazon EC2 is expensive for what you get but it's legit.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Booooo hissssss
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
...when newspapers feared the rise of the internet. Now we have all the new money buying one outright. Is Jeff going to keep it going out of nostalgia or dig a hole and give it a quiet burial out of regard for the old guard? Or will it become his personal editorial platform...
Reasons to buy any newspaper:
- Foreign bureau access
- Subscriber base
- Political posture
- Brain trust
- Support a specific community
- Keep a tradition going
- Take control of an adversary or adversarial outlet
I'm going with the political angle on this one...
Expect lots of pro-H1B editorials. No wait, they already have those.
Could be worse - at least it's not Murdoch.
I know he's saying that Amazon and the WP will be kept separate. But Amazon, along with Google, is in the forefront of the intersection of digital technology and commerce, and tends to be an early arrival at many points of controversy with respect to privacy, intellectual property and copyright, employment, energy policies, taxation, and the replacement of the old economy with the new. From that POV, the Washington Post was a great bastion of independence until today.
Having a CEO of a major fortune 500 company is not going to improve objectivity.
Wapo and WSJ have 'neocon' editorial boards, but if you cant understand the difference bewteen editorial boards and the straight news reporting then, well, i dont know what to tell you.
WaPo was one of the first to break the Tom Drake story. WSJ has done dozens of great stories on the financial fraud that caused the great recession, including basically breaking the Magnetar Capital story.
Under Bezos, none of those stories are going to happen.
The first batch of internet-made billionaires seem to be a reasonable nice bunch (by which I can only mean agree with my ideals).
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.
"the only reason that we ever found out about Nixon abusing the FBI to persecute his political opponents was because the Washington Post owners were willing to challenge the government."
Too bad they only do this when a republican is in the white house.
If you want instant, as it happens, look to twitter, the elite blogs of independent journalists on the ground, in the trenches, as they tweet, youtube, and post instant commentary and analysis. The revolution will be recorded in a newspaper somewhere, but it will be a day late, and a dollar more.
What is it with all these newspapers changing hands lately? Has their lack of relevancy finally reached the point where they've simply been relegated to the status of being used as trading cards for rich people? Does Rupert Murdoch's kid ride around with a couple Brit tabloids clipped in his bicycle spokes? (Actually the noise would probably prove less obnoxious than the news.)
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
One-click micro-transaction articles. :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The top .00001% of the world have only grown richer during this past decade of global economic crisis. They have enriched themselves to a greater extent than in all human history combined. The new oligharchs on the planet have the power to buy governments wholesale, just look at the machinations of recent elections in any democracy on the planet....and you think this is all for your benefit? The joke is on you.
lolz
Only I can judge you.
I speak only for myself, but I only buy around half a dozen issues of any newspaper/magazine in a given year. There is simply too much quality content out there on the 'net for FREE, produced by predominantly independent sources, and untainted by corporate tentacles. I'm sure owning one's own newspaper adds a few points to one's ego, in which case the price of $250 million may seem like a bargain indeed.
He paid $250M? Doesn't he know it's only $1.99 on Kindle?
I'm going with the political angle on this one...
I don't think so. I think the sales of the Boston Globe and the Washington Post this week show that old guard newspapers are now conspicuous consumption options for the super rich.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
1981-1983 I was the local support team leader in Miami for the Space Studies Institute sponsoring public awareness events about space settlement. Some punk gave his valedictorian speech on space settlement during Miami Palmetto Senior High School's 1982 graduation ceremonies.
Seastead this.
Is buying a newspaper like buying politicians? For what purpose, to what end? Why do I get the feeling that this is not going to end well.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
He paid $250 million in cash? That's 2.3 tonnes of bills, according to some quick googling and Wolfram Alpha work (based on the assumption that $1 million in $100 bills weighs approx. 20.4 Lbs)
They'll fight being dragged out their New Guilded Age kicking and screaming the whole way.
Is there anything set up so that the journal is still be able to tell us whether Amazon is involved in dirty stuff with the NSA?
All with Amazon branding to boot for a mere $250 mil. With the Boston Globe just getting sold for $70M it seems as though Newspapers are cheap enough.
Now Bezos can pump the WP articles onto Kindles royalty free. It's a bit of a shame though, I do like the WP and had a subscription when I lived in DC.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
this:
I share parent's frustration. I used to tell my students that 'Steve Jobs' "innovation" wasn't making an mp3 player, Creative Labs did that, it was getting the RIAA labels to go along with iTunes'
Thank you Dave Raggett
Are you saying that the owner outright of a newspaper doesn't have the ability to affect its content?
Or are you saying that all changes in newpaper leadership always lead to **more** bias?
it has to be one or the other for your argument to be consistent...and neither of those options are valid
ownership matters...even if they 'keep the same editorial staff' or w/e...it matters
will the paper have bias? yes...but all papers have **some** bias...see, the difference is, some view it as their **job** as journalists to eject or minimize bias, other news orgs do not put objectivity as a high priority
Bezos will IMHO make the paper less biased than it is now...an improvement. For the reasons I stated.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Frame one: Bezos "I think I'll go out an buy a paper..."
Frame two: "...bird cage is getting a little rank."
If you would like to know what sort of communicator Jeff Bezos is, look at Amazon.com. It's an annoying mess.
..."
But maybe Jeff Bezos has a plan? No: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Buys Washington Post for $250 Million. Quote: "I don't want to imply that I have a worked-out plan,
I joked with my wife about her criticism of me for buying something at a dollar store for $1 without a good plan of how I would use it.
Something about being a billionaire makes people crazy. I guess it's because they have no friends, or they think everyone wants to be with them because of their money.
Another quote from Bezos: "This will be uncharted terrain and it will require experimentation."
It's a sad, sad day for the employees at the Washington Post. It's a sad, sad day for the United States. I love the U.S., and I'm sad.
I'm not sad. I'm interested to see what form the experimentation will take.
Basically any kind of unplanned seat of the pants experimenting is superior to the existing newspaper plan of trying to have the ship grind down the iceburg until they can pass through.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"The thing that I find amazing is that Bezos is the one to launch a successful e-reader..."
That's not quite how it happened, if I remember correctly. When the first e-reader became available, there was a huge amount of press about the new technology.
Amazon negotiated with publishers. with whom the company already had contracts, for e-books. There are a lot of people who can't or won't carry heavy books. It was easy to see there was a market.
"I'm interested to see what form the experimentation will take."
In my opinion, that does not show sufficient insight into the real challenges.
Jeff Bezos had an idea of selling books on the internet. He hired some people to write the software. He was excellent at believing fully in the idea and doing whatever it took to make it a success. He got enormous benefits from being first. But, that is basically all.
Managing world communications is extremely different. It is necessary to manage the people. It is necessary to appeal to reporters and know how to avoid their excesses. Every writer needs editors. Those editors must have an enormous amount of social insight. Both reporters and editors must be fascinated with the way the world works.
And there are far bigger challenges. A newspaper requires deep, detailed understanding of the world around us. Jeff Bezos does not have sufficient social sophistication. He has never managed anything as complicated as a communication company producing stories throughout the world.
For example, is the present Al Qaeda alert an attempt by people in the U.S. government to sell citizens on the NSA? Why does the media talk about Snowden rather than try to understand if the NSA is doing other things that are being hidden from citizens?
Who will run for president in the next election? It is necessary to start building relationships now.
How does a newspaper manager interest U.S. citizens more in the workings of the U.S. government? Many stories about politics are poorly written and focus on less important issues. What can be done about that?
In my opinion, Jeff Bezos has never shown the kind of abilities that are required.
Links to that quality content please!
The way i look at it is its better that he spend it on local stupid shit as opposed to buying Russian fighter jets like Travolta so he can play "Top Gun 4 Real" or buying some insanely fast sports car that he'd probably total in a month. Of course we all know he might as well have bought an 8-track factory so a fool and his money comes to mind, but considering how much crazy dangerous shit you can buy with that money buying a newspaper? kinda tame actually.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
wish i had mod points, as your observation goes right over the heads of the clueless Progressives
It seems that you disagree not only with what I said, but with the staff of the Washington Post. See the WP's own article. They don't look happy.
... 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."
... has dealt with some difficulties in recent years -- the company hasn't yet put a ship in orbit and suffered a serious setback after a prototype spacecraft crashed in August of 2011."
You said, "Bezos lacks an understanding of how the world works?
Everything in that is Amazon's core business, very different from running a news organization. Whoever runs Amazon seems to be doing quite well. But Jeff Bezos is, more and more, distracting himself. Did you know that Bezos has a spaceflight company? Quoting: "Blue Origin
Another quote from the article: " In the past two years, the Post's uncertain future has led to an exodus of many of its top writers." The Washington Post is doing very badly with its present management, and that management is rapidly becoming worse.
Quoting that article again: "Last week, the Washington Post Company reported an operating loss of $49.3 million in the first six months of 2013, compared to a $33.2 million loss for the same period a year earlier..."
And... Jeff Bezos won't be running the Washington Post. Quoting Jeff Bezos: ' "I won't be leading The Washington Post day-to-day. I am happily living in 'the other Washington' where I have a day job that I love. Besides that, the Post already has an excellent leadership team that knows much more about the news business than I do, and I'm extremely grateful to them for agreeing to stay on." '
Jeff Bezos says the Washington Post "already has an excellent leadership team..." That team is losing HUGE amounts of money.
Continuing, Jeff Bezos says: "... that knows much more about the news business than I do."
That was my point.
You have disagreed not only with me, but with Jeff Bezos himself.
The new Kindle Fire is the greatest technological breakthrough since Gutenberg.
-- The Washington Post
I guess just deleting the cookies on exit will no longer be enough to read the paper for free when the Internet guys start running newspapers.
'buying some insanely fast sports car that he'd probably total in a month...'
Nobody buys them, they rent those. I mean everybody besides Nicolas Cage, he even buys a castle instead of renting a room.
Let's not White Knight Bezos too much yet; he's the same guy that was obsessed with receiving a patent for a user clicking a fucking button. Doesn't sound too much like 'power to the people' to me.
You are twisting his words there. He is saying that the paper needs to change because the world is changing and news is moving online. He doesn't know exactly how to sort it out yet, but is at least going to try. The best anyone else has come up with is the paywall.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Dude, even if you want to scrap the whole leadership team, you're polite and praise them until you're ready to break out the axe.
Jeff Bezos bought a toilette paper company.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I bought ice-cream yesterday although I did not need it (lactose)
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Has their lack of relevancy finally reached the point where they've simply been relegated to the status of being used as trading cards for rich people?
Pretty much, yeah. That's the new model.
Actually, sports teams and low circulation specialty magazines went this route quite a while back. Why? Every business is in a delicate cash-flow dance. The internet caused the amount of income for newspapers to drop precipitously. As such, many have lost profitability, cut staff, and (sadly) gone out of business, often leaving important local issues not covered. The only thing they have to bank on any more is their reputation (which was damaged in the early wave of downsizing due to corporate consolidation and ownership in the nineties) and their prestige (slightly dubious, to be sure, but present, nonetheless). Both of these intangibles make them irresistible as (relatively low cost) economic fashion accessories for wealthy folks. Expect more of this in the future.
Wealthy patrons will buy publications and let them run fairly independently, except for particular issues that they want to flog. The patron gets influence, prestige, and a hobby and the public gets better press (albeit middle of the road and innocuous) than it can support financially. It's the business model all of you internet folk have been clamoring for the newspapers to find. Sure, it's corporate/1% owned, but what isn't these days?
That is all.
250 Million for the Monte Python theme song? eh?
If you start out assuming that Mother Jones is the center of US political opinion, yes, the NYT might seem quite conservative.
But it's a little like when some of the right wing firebreathers complain about that pinko rag the Washington Times.
When you're at 30,000 feet, there's not much difference in appearance for something at ground level or at 500 feet.
Can you provide any evidence that Jeff Bezos understands technology? The Amazon e-ink reader was designed and built by another company.
Jeff Bezos started a spaceflight company. That company has failed.
Elon Musk started a spaceflight company. That company has been amazingly successful.
Amazon has been rapidly buying new companies. That's why Amazon has not been making a profit.
No profit. See this article: Amazon's profit-eating machine revs into overdrive. Massive revenues? Check. Profits? You must be joking!
I just want to point him in the general direction of the Murdoch media empire with a healthy dose of PCP.
I bet that would be fun to watch.
In general, I agree with your wife. But maybe he has SO MUCH MONEY that he can "waste" $250 million just like you are "wasting" $1. According to Forbes, it's less than 1% of his net worth. http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2013/08/05/jeff-bezos-buys-washington-post-for-250-million-less-than-1-of-his-net-worth/ Presumably you're worth more than $100, but lots of people buy ridiculously expensive cars or huge houses. (I like the IDEA of a huge house, but the *upkeep*/paying for others to upkeep seems like more of a pain than the initial purchase itself, even if you have the money.)
It's not as though the Washington Post was anything other than a sad, broken shell of it's formerly great self.
We know that Amazon has been looking for a way to have urban same day delivery for some purchases. Who has a somewhat efficient same day delivery system already in place? Newspapers do, and their equipment and certain systems may be adaptable to a system for delivering parcels at other times, or perhaps even in conjunction with dropping off the bales of papers and putting parcels in a secure facility at the same time.
The same-day delivery system could be the savior of daily newspaper deliveries, and it could become a profit center for newspapers - who would be part of the system of delivering Amazon packages.
Bezos thinks out of the box, and this is certainly an out of the box (so to speak) solution.
F.
If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Looks like Bezos is diversifying his interests away from computers. So how long does he think Amazon will last"
OK