Jeff Bezos, Not Amazon, Is Buying Washington Post for $250 Million

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Gloria Borger reports on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos purchasing The Washington Post and other properties for $250 million.

The Washington Post (WP) is the most widely circulated newspaper published in Washington, D.C., and oldest existing newspaper in the area — founded in 1877.

The Washington Post is one of the three major American daily newspapers, including The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. The Post has distinguished itself through its political reporting on the workings of the White House, Congress, and other aspects of the U.S. government.

Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and a wide variety of products. Initially only involved in the of selling books, Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and a top model for Internet sales.

“There is one thing I’m certain about: there won’t be printed newspapers in twenty years. Maybe as luxury items in some hotels that want to offer them as an extravagant service. Printed papers won’t be normal in twenty years.”

— Jeff Bezos

The Washington Post Company, the mass media known for owning The Washington Post, previously owned Newsweek and Newsweek.com, but sold the magazine to 92-year-old audio pioneer Sidney Harman of Harman Kardon in 2010 after years of financial losses. The Daily Beast and Newsweek merged into a joint venture named The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, with IAC and Sidney Harman each owning 50 percent of the new company. IAC owns a number of brands, including Ask.com, Citysearch, CollegeHumor, Dictionary.com, Match.com, Reference.com, SpeedDate.com, Thesaurus.com, Urbanspoon, and Vimeo. The Chairman of IAC is Barry Diller, who introduced Aereo, and Internet television service that provides local television streaming over the Internet.

In October 2012, Newsweek ceased print publication with the December 31, 2012, issue and changed to an all-digital format, called Newsweek Global.

Just before Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, he said in interview in the German newspaper Berliner-Zeitung, that no one would bother paying for news online and print would be dead in 20 years. Bezos also said that from experience on Amazon, executives learned that people are willing to pay for newspaper subscriptions on tablets. He believes in the near future every household will have multiple tablets.


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