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Home Front: Culture Wars
WaPo gets bought out by Amazon's Bezos
2013-08-06
Bezos told editorial employees the WaPo will pursue the truth whereever it leads them, as it always has. Brother. Same bullsh*t different boss.

Someone over at Ace's pointed out that cumulatively, Bezos has never made a dime of profit on Amazon.
The Washington Post and some of its affiliated publications are being sold to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos for $250 million.

Amazon itself will have no role in the purchase; Bezos will be the company's sole owner, taking over from 80 years of ownership by the Graham family.

The paper, like many others, has had difficulty staying profitable in the digital age, with operating revenue declining 44 percent over the last six years. Though Donald Graham, the Post Co.'s chief executive, said that the paper could have remained profitable for the foreseeable future, the ownership "wanted to do more than survive."

Bezos called the Washington Post "an important institution," and said he doesn't "have a worked-out plan."
But he bought it anyway. Brilliant businessman, that Bezos guy...
"This will be uncharted terrain and it will require experimentation," Bezos said in an interview. Nevertheless, Bezos said the "key thing" that people should take away from the paper's acquisition is that "the values of the Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners."
As demonstrated by the paper losing 44% of the owners' money in the last go-round. How shall they demonstrate that duty to the planless Mr. Bezos, d'you suppose? And why on earth did he buy the thing, anyway?
To keep it in business long enough to influence the 2016 election...
But the Washington Post's readers already vote Democrat. Republicans read the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal.
You always have the "low-information voters" who need to be swayed...
Posted by:badanov

#10  Hopefully this purchase won't begin to alienate fifty percent of Amazon's potential customer base as well.

If the Kindle single (and it's free!) they did of an interview with President Obama is any indication, it most definitely will. Link Note the double hump on the comments, with the majority of comments evenly divided between one star and five stars, and almost 900 comments since the 31.July publication date.
Posted by: trailing wife   2013-08-06 20:38  

#9  a blogger on The New Republic (leftist mag owned by a facebook billionaire) is criticizing this sale.

as far as I can tell, the guy doesn't see the irony
Posted by: lord garth   2013-08-06 18:44  

#8  "you know how to build a small fortune owning liberal newspapers......?"
Posted by: Frank G on the road   2013-08-06 14:26  

#7  "The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners."

Which is the fifty percent of the potential readership they've not alienated.

Hopefully this purchase won't begin to alienate fifty percent of Amazon's potential customer base as well.
Posted by: Pappy   2013-08-06 11:30  

#6  Of note, from the Washington Times, supporting badanov's point elsewhere that Mr. Bezos is a liberal:

According to the New York Post, Amazon Web Services also helped build the “high-tech data storage and retrieval system for the Obama campaign’s get-out-the-vote operation.”

“During the campaign, the AWS solution helped facilitate the fund-raising of hundreds of millions of dollars, prioritized millions of phone calls and coordinated thousands of volunteers,” Amazon said on its Web site.
Posted by: trailing wife   2013-08-06 11:29  

#5  #3 He bought it so they can wrap the Amazon packages with cheap, worthless WaPo editorial pages.

I'd say that's a winner!
Posted by: SteveS   2013-08-06 11:26  

#4  WaPo goes Kindle.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2013-08-06 11:16  

#3  He bought it so they can wrap the Amazon packages with cheap, worthless WaPo editorial pages.
Posted by: airandee   2013-08-06 09:51  

#2  Patting Bezos and the LGBT community on the head in advance of the Hildebeast's run-up ?
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-08-06 02:28  

#1  Blue Origin and WaPo under the same hood.. It doesn't compute.
Posted by: 3dc   2013-08-06 02:14  

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