Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in a $250 million deal announced on Monday, which underscored the economic decline of the newspaper business and a renewed emphasis on the role of modern media in shaping news, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The sale puts one of the most venerated newspapers in the hands of an entrepreneur who rose to prominence almost 20 years ago. It also comes as print newspaper ad revenues fell 55% between 2007 and 2012, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
Last week, the New York Times Co. sold the Boston Globe for $70 million, having paid $1.1 billion for it in 1993.
Bezos wrote in a letter to The Washington Post employees that the Internet is "transforming almost every element of the news business. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment." Bezos will not be involved in the day-to-day management of the newspaper.
"Jeff is a business person, not a magician. He is going to have to work as hard as everyone else to figure out the problem of news. But he brings a lot," The Washington Post Co. Chairman Don E. Graham said. Bezos, who launched Amazon in 1995, is worth about $26 billion, news reports said.
Post Co. will change its name after the sale, although a new name has yet to be disclosed. The company will retain its real estate and a few journalism properties including Slate.com and Foreign Policy magazine. The Post already sold Newsweek in 2010 after a sharp decline in sales.
"We have loved the paper, what it stood for, and those who produced it," Graham said in a letter. "We were certain the paper would survive under our ownership, but we wanted it to do more than that. We wanted it to succeed."
Katherine Weymouth, the paper's current publisher said the decision to sell to Bezos largely had to do with "process," more than anything else. "You know it really was a process. The fam - the paper has been in my family for 80 years going back to when my great-grandfather bought it, and we've as a family been incredibly proud to steward the business and be affiliated with it and hope to go on for generations to come..." she said. "This is a mission-driven business, and the goal is to preserve and enhance and enrich the mission, which is the journalism."
