Can Amazon founder revive Washington PostIJ
The Graham family's sale of The Washington Post to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been described by some as the surrender of a crown jewel by the newspaper industry's royal family. The accompanying feelings of sadness and disappointment are understandable. The Post is not just any newspaper but one that ousted an American President from office and inspired a generation of journalists. It is an institution — it is only in the fitness of things that the building in Washington, DC, that serves as its home has its own pin code — and the Graham family which has managed it for the last eight decades of its 135-year-long existence has played an important role in shaping the paper's values and ideals. For many, the disassociation of the two marks the end of an era. But this does not have to be a bad thing. The Post, like many of its peers, was losing money as proliferation of the Internet has dramatically changed the way Americans consume their news. Sooner or later, the financial crunch was bound to adversely impact the Post's quality of journalism. As the paper's current CEO Donald Graham put it, the owners had three options: let the paper bleed out, make steep financial cuts that would hurt the paper immediately and still lead to a closure eventually, or sell it to someone better suited to lead the paper in the new age.
Mr Jeffrey P Bezos fits the bill perfectly. He has revolutionised consumer behaviour on the Net and his company is the world's largest online retailer. So, if there is one man who knows how to sell something online, it is him. But that is not the only reason why Mr Bezos is probably good for the ailing broadsheet. Worth $25.2 billion, his deep pockets mean that he will be able to bankroll the newspaper even if it does not register immediate profits. In this context, the fact that he bought the Post in his personal capacity — and not through publicly traded Amazon.com Inc — is important because it means he will be able to allow the paper the time it needs to find and fine-tune a profitable business model that will allow it to also uphold its proud journalistic traditions. In fact, it is Mr Bezos's reputation as a successful Internet entrepreneur not overly obsessed with the bottom line, that is supposed to have swung the deal in his favour. The Post readers should also take comfort from the fact that the new owner has promised not to meddle with the daily functioning of the paper — leaving that instead to its current “excellent leadership team that knows much more about the news business than I do”. For now, most indicators for the future are positive, but expectedly there is some apprehension. After all, there have been unpleasant experiences of media magnates buying reputed newspapers and then compromising journalistic credentials to increase profits. let's hope that Mr Bezos, who has built his empire by capitalising on people's reading habits, will strengthen The Washington Post's connect with its readers.