Mediagazer: Katharine Weymouth letter to Post readers (Katharine Weymouth/Washington Post)

10:45 PM ET, August 5, 2013

Top News:

Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos — The Washington Post Co. has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family's stewardship of one of America's leading news organizations after four generations.

Discussion: Jack Shafer, Washington Post, PandoDaily, INMA, TechCrunch, The Buttry Diary, Wonkblog, Variety, New Republic, Wonkblog, Businessweek, Gawker, NetNewsCheck Latest, Forbes, USA Today, Columbia Journalism Review, CNET, MinOnline, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, Forbes, washpostco.com, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Business Insider, LA Biz Observed, Gannett Blog, Poynter, paidContent, @davidfrum, The Switch, The Wrap, TIME, Deadline.com, Media Nation, @hofrench, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, @geneweingarten, The Daily Caller, @pkafka, TechSpot, Broadcasting & Cable, FishbowlNY, FishbowlDC, Media & Entertainment, @moorehn, Betabeat, Fast Company, @jeffjarvis, The New Yorker Blog, AdAge, @corybe, New York Magazine, Fortune, One Man and His Blog, DealBook, Wired, Mediaite, Hit & Run, ZDNet, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, Slate, Quartz, @eddyelfenbein, @stevenlevy, @learmonth, @dangillmor, The Next Web, GeekWire, @marcambinder, @jbflint, @macloo, @nickbilton, @chanders, @fieldproducer, @sts10, @chanders, @davidfolkenflik, @mikiebarb, VatorNews, SocialTimes, @brianstelter, @hblodget, @stephcliff, @jimbradysp, @stateofnova, @vivianschiller, @page88, @clarajeffery, @derekwillis, @stateofnova, @dankennedy_nu, @jeffjarvis, @ezraklein, ReadWrite, The Verge, Politico, @megan, @sts10, @leenarao, Digits, @jcstearns, PE Hub Blog, GalleyCat, Vanity Fair, The Dish, Electronista, MetaFilter, Hillicon Valley, Engadget and New York Times

Jeff Bezos / Washington Post:

Jeff Bezos on Post purchase — To the employees of The Washington Post: — You'll have heard the news, and many of you will greet it with a degree of apprehension. When a single family owns a company for many decades, and when that family acts for all those decades in good faith …

James Fallows / The Atlantic Online:

Why the Sale of the Washington Post Seems So Significant — A moment that will define an era's upheaval in journalism. — In the photo above we see Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee walking out of the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington after their historic win in the legal battle over publishing the Pentagon Papers.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, BuzzMachine, Forbes, Crikey, AdAge, WWD Media Headlines, Speakeasy, GigaOM, FishbowlDC, @pkafka, @sophblack, @sdkstl, @dkthomp, @jamesfallows, @dangillmor, @kvox, @jaredbkeller and @bobstep

Katharine Weymouth / Washington Post:

Katharine Weymouth letter to Post readers — Dear readers: — This is a day that my family and I never expected to come. The Washington Post Company is selling the newspaper it has owned and nurtured for eight decades. — In addition to The Washington Post, the company …

Discussion: Forbes, The Wrap, @jumastorga, Business Insider, TechCrunch, @earljwilkinson, @aloraibi and @samsifton

Emily Bell / Guardian:

Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post: a marriage of old media and new money — The Amazon billionaire's buy marks a fascinating transition as east coast influence passes to Silicon Valley entrepreneurialism — The sale of the Washington Post to Amazon founder and multibillionaire Jeff Bezos for $250m …

Discussion: Forbes, @emilybell, @benjaminjackson, @rosental, @matthewwells, @paullewis, CNET, @moorehn, @digiphile, Wonkblog and Business Insider

Donald Graham / Washington Post:

Letter from Donald Graham on sale of The Post — I have a most surprising announcement. Our company is making it public right now that we have sold The Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. To be clear, the buyer is not Amazon, but a company owned by Jeff personally.

Discussion: Business Insider, @melissabell, @anneapplebaum, @jayrosen_nyu and Quartz

The Wrap:

The Washington Post Sale Further Devalues Newspapers, Say Experts — “By Don Graham selling this, he's really started something in terms of devaluing newspapers,” says one analyst — Follow @BrentALangFollow @sharonwaxman — The sale of the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos for $250 million …

Discussion: USA Today and JIMROMENESKO.COM

David Carr / New York Times: The Washington Post Reaches the End of the Graham Era

Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:

Time Warner Cable: We'll End Blackout If We Can Offer CBS A La Carte — In a letter, TWC CEO Glenn Britt asks to resume negotiations immediately, and wants the network to stop blocking CBS.com content from its broadband customers. — Time Warner Cable's CEO Glenn Britt on Monday sent …

Discussion: Deadline.com, Bloomberg, The Wrap, @edmundlee, @sherman4949, @wjcarter, @samgustin, @peterlauria3 and Wall Street Journal

Bloomberg:
Time Warner's blackout of CBS enters third day

Discussion: GigaOM, Forbes, Broadcasting & Cable, The Wrap, CNET, Variety, Radio & Television …, Hillicon Valley, AdAge and New York Times

Sara Morrison / The Wrap:

Tina Brown to Howard Kurtz: 'Didn't I Fire You for Serial Inaccuracy?' — Howard Kurtz and Tina Brown took to Twitter to share their innermost hostilities toward one another on Monday, with the Daily Beast editor responding to Kurtz's criticism with the remark: “Didn't I fire you for serial inaccuracy?”

Discussion: Mediaite, @atxjj, FishbowlNY, @janicebmin, The Huffington Post, TVNewser and The Drum

New York Times:
The Last Temptation of Tina Brown

Beth Healy / The Boston Globe:

3 groups say they topped Henry's bid for Globe — Three of the groups that lost out in the bidding for The Boston Globe say their offers were higher than Red Sox owner John W. Henry's winning $70 million bid — prompting them to question the New York Times Co.'s sales process.

Discussion: Boston Globe, Gawker, The Huffington Post and Poynter

Tim McLaughlin / Reuters: From Boston hero to goat, billionaire John Henry takes on Globe challenge

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Digital usage overtaking all legacy media — Americans this year are likely to spend as many hours consuming content on digital devices as the combined amount of time that they devote to gazing at TV and paging through print, according to eMarketer, a research-aggregation service.

Discussion: @carlzimmer

Om Malik / GigaOM:

The short story of Longreads, according to founder Mark Armstrong — Mark Armstrong, like many people in New York City, was a commuter — he commuted to Time Inc.'s midtown Manhattan offices from Cobble HIll, Brooklyn, and it was the tedium of the commute that led him to seek ways to keep himself busy when he was without Wi-Fi.

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Meet The Mysterious Duo Who Just Bought Newsweek — The news that Newsweek had been sold to IBT Media was received by most of the media world over the weekend as the final, clinching evidence of the magazine's abasement. To be handed off to a publisher that even most people in the news business …

Discussion: The New York Observer, Folio and Christianity Today

Shira Ovide / Wall Street Journal:

For Twitter, Free Speech Is a High-Wire Act — As Micro-Blogging Site Expands Globally, It Gets Flak From Many Sides — Twitter Inc.'s growing ambitions are making it harder to carry the Internet's free-speech banner. — Chief Executive Dick Costolo promotes Twitter as a protector …