Mediagazer: Washington Post sale: Details of Bezos deal (Washington Post)

12:30 AM ET, August 6, 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.

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

David Carr / New York Times:

The Washington Post Reaches the End of the Graham Era — In late 2012, Donald E. Graham, the chairman and chief executive of The Washington Post Company, met with the paper's publisher, Katharine Weymouth, to look at the paper's future for the next three years. Their assessment troubled them.

Discussion: @curtisbeast, @anupkaphle, @brianstelter and @1bobcohn

John F. Harris / Politico:

What is Jeff Bezos thinking? — Within minutes of the news going public, I had an email from a recognizable byline at the Washington Post that captured my feelings exactly: “Holy. S**t.” — In the heyday of this singular American institution, those two words were the very phrase …

Discussion: @politico, @politico, @bensherwoodabc, @jaycosttws, @hale_a, @pkafka, @mlsif and Reuters

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, Gawker, BuzzFeed, The Verge, @earljwilkinson, @aloraibi, @jumastorga, TechCrunch, Business Insider, @samsifton and The Wrap

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, @ceciliamarie, @emilybell, @benjaminjackson, @rosental, @matthewwells, @paullewis, CNET, Wonkblog, New Republic, TIME, @moorehn and @digiphile

Washington Post:

Washington Post sale: Details of Bezos deal — The purchase of The Washington Post by Jeffrey P. Bezos ends 42 years in which The Post has been part of a publicly traded company, creates a small windfall for the company's shareholders and will leave the stewardship of the newspaper in the hands of a privately held firm.

Discussion: @fmanjoo, @fmanjoo, @washingtonpost, @hblodget, @frucci and AppNewser

Jack Shafer:

Jeff Bezos is an owner who knows how to deliver — As the American newspaper business began its red-ink slide in the late 2000s, I fully expected a billionaire to rescue the financially struggling Washington Post. But I never thought its savior would be Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who purchased the paper today for $250 million.

Discussion: New Republic, Washington Post, Digits, Quartz 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: @froomkin, @melissabell, @anneapplebaum, Business Insider, @jayrosen_nyu and Quartz

The Wrap:
The Washington Post Sale Further Devalues Newspapers, Say Experts

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, USA Today and @gabrielsnyder

Henry Blodget / Business Insider: Here's Why I Think Jeff Bezos Bought The Washington Post

Peter Whoriskey / Washington Post: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos known for patience, focus on detail in his business ventures

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:
Jeff Bezos's landmark purchase of the Washington Post

Discussion: Forbes

Jennifer Saba / Reuters: Graham, Bezos hashed out Washington Post deal in Sun Valley

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, Variety, Radio & Television …, CNET, Hillicon Valley, AdAge and New York Times

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.

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

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