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Jeff Bezos just bought the Washington Post

David_Snowball
edited August 2013 in Fund Discussions
Jeff, individually, not Amazon.
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon.com Inc., is buying the Washington Post Co.'s flagship newspaper and some related publishing assets for $250 million.

Mr. Bezos is buying the publishing business as an individual, and not in his capacity as CEO of Amazon, according to the announcement.
The "related assets" are the "Express newspaper, the Gazette Newspapers, Southern Maryland Newspapers, Fairfax County Times, El Tiempo Latino and Greater Washington Publishing."

It's a fascinating development since 98.24% of newspapers have been utter money pits in the last decade.

David

Comments

  • CharlesCharles
    edited August 2013
    Wow. NY Times next?

    Amazing man.

    As you know, AMZN is a fifty-bagger from its low in 2001.

    Then below $7 per share...today? $300
  • hank
    A great paper with a proud history. I believe he'll be a good steward. May have kept it from falling into the wrong hands. Remarkable individual - as Charles said. Here's a link concerning his recent underwater expedition, which recovered parts from the Apollo 11 (first moon landing) rocket engines, if anyone's interested.

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57575364-235/bezos-expeditions-recovers-pieces-of-apollo-11-rockets/


  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    Reply to @hank: "I believe he'll be a good steward." Brethren, let us pray!!
  • hank
    edited August 2013
    Reply to @Old_Joe: Re: "Brethren, let us pray!!" That might well be said for most of the great newspapers.. They're all struggling to stay afloat in this day of cheap & easy access to news.

    I'll pray along with you that Bezos has some answers because IMHO the Post and many others offer the depth, perspective, and a degree of journalistic integrigity that's otherwise hard to come by.
  • hank
    Reply to @Charles: I recall the News Hour doing a segment on Amazon when it was in its infancy. They had just one warehouse. Bezos and the other half dozen or so employees were racing about on roller skates grabbing orders off the shelves & and prepping them for shipment. ... lol
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    Reply to @hank: Yes, and I'll even include the WSJ in that group of great newspapers, as long as you ignore the editorial ranting grounds section. Sometimes I have to wonder if the editorial folks even read the front news sections.
  • David_Snowball
    Reply to @Charles: Read an interesting proposal once, that the top research universities (Harvard, Yale, Stanford...) form a consortium to buy and run The New York Times. The argument, at base, was that great universities need great newspapers (heck, Harvard even has its own page http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard_university/index.html at the Times) and great journalism and they have the resources and time horizon to support it. David
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