Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos

Washington Post ^ | August 5, 2013

[Second Amendment First]

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.

[stephenjohnbanker]

I hope so. He only bought it for political influence.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Yes, but only on a Kindle Fire.

[x]

Are they going to get out of paying taxes now?

And what are the less talented members of the Graham family going to do with their lives now?

There's only room for so many of them in Congress ...

[RoosterRedux]

I would like to know how he valued the company considering it is an industry in the middle of an unpredictable transformation from paper to digital.

Of course, if anyone has a good idea of what is going to transpire, it would be Bezos.

My guess is that other papers will now trade off this transaction's pricing (until the market can see the actual results in profitability of Bezo's plans for the Post).

[abb]

Another Sugar Daddy steps up to keep a propaganda ministry afloat.

[NautiNurse]

>> Does this mean we can read WaPo for free on the Amazon.com site now?
Yes, but only on a Kindle Fire.

Or with Amazon Prime. You can get the newspaper delivered via expedited two-day shipping at no additional cost.

[o2bfree]

TV Advertising surcharge - great way for red states to raise money from liberals.

[PGR88]

All super-wealthy people need a media outlet

Either to promote their own interests, tell a story how they want it told, protect themselves from extortion, threaten uncooperative politicians, or to become a member of the establishment and play ball with them.

$250 million is chump-change for Bezos, but he immediately becomes a player in Washington DC. He won’t expect to make money with the Compost - probably only hopes to keep losses to a minimum.

What happened to Buffet’s stake?

[Berosus]

Well, if anyone can keep WAPO’s doors open when it isn’t earning any money, it’s Bezos.

[GeronL]

Comrade Bezos takes charge of DC Pravda

For the greater glory of the order of Obama, the great and wonderful Jeff Bezos, his magnificance has graced the presence of this journal of leftist opinion. May Vladimir himself smile down in this most wonderful of unions, allowing us to continue to smite thine enemies of socialism.
Comrade Barack Obama, President and Chairman of the USSA is pleased with this union and his wise benevolence is praiseworthy indeed. Glory to the future of the socialist USSA!

[Zakeet]

It appears that Jeff left behind the only segment of the comPost Company that makes
money ... a subsidiary notorious for milking the government's student loan cash cow!

[Vince Ferrer]

I do this over joining the political contributions circuit in Washington.

[unixfox]

Much ado about nothing—except Bezos will have cash to pour into it.

Fools and their money.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Exactly.

[SamAdams76]

The way things are going, I should be able to afford to purchase the New York Times in about five more years.

I shall fire the entire editorial staff and will hire some Freepers to produce the editorials. I will run a "Caption This" contest on the front page and let people submit their captions online. Whoever comes up with the best caption of the day will win a free steak dinner at Sparks Steakhouse.

It will be a fun hobby for me and I'm looking forward to it. I might even get to hang out at Martha's Vineyard with the "beautiful people" every once in a while.

[bigbob]

That’s the trend, but consider that selling the WaPo for “only” $250M a dozen years ago would have been a steal. My local rag is published by a broke outfit that owns 237 daily newspapers and a bunch of other crap, yet the enterprise value of the whole shooting matching match is less than $4 Million. Literally pocket change for a new owner, but who’d want it?

[Viennacon]

And in other news, Politico was sold to Karl Marx

[DoughtyOne]

I agree. I still maintain that if done properly, a local ‘even large’ newspaper can survive in the print format. I’m sure not going to bet this amount of money on that premise though.

[Eva]

What was it that Bob Woodward was saying about Obama last year? I think that it was about the sequester, Woodward was critical of Obama and the Obama administration was unhappy. I believe that Woodward even claimed that he had been threatened by a senior Obama administration official.

I guess that Bezos is going to make sure that doesn’t happen again and also take over the Obamacare public relations at the same time.

[joshua c]

Sucker!

I hope he spends a boatload of money trying to keep it afloat.

It looks like the Graham family were able to keep the profitable companies that were keeping the Post afloat.