Amazon’s Bezos, in surprise deal, buys Washington Post
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos will buy the Washington Post newspaper for $250 million in a surprise deal that ends the Graham family’s 80-year ownership and hands one of America’s most influential publications to the tech entrepreneur.
Mr Bezos, believed to be the world’s 19th richest person with a fortune of $25.2 billion, who helped transform Internet retail, called this a personal endeavour and told Post employees and readers he will preserve the paper’s journalistic traditions, while driving innovation.
The acquisition, latest in a flurry of recent media deals, including the New York Times Company’s sale of the Boston Globe for $70 million, is a further indication of the unprecedented challenges that newspapers face.
“I understand the critical role the Post plays in Washington DC and our nation, and the Post’s values will not change,” Mr Bezos said in a letter to employees. He will buy the Post along with other newspaper assets from the Washington Post Co, and Amazon.com will be kept separate from the Post deal, the Washington Post reported.
Mr Bezos, who built Seattle-based Amazon.com into a shopping and online technology force in the past two decades, made a small foray into the media earlier this year with a small investment in Business Insider, an Internet news site.
The Washington Post is internationally famous for the “Watergate” team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose investigative reporting led to the downfall of US President Richard Nixon in the 1970s.
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