Mediagazer: Jeff Bezos is an owner who knows how to deliver (Jack Shafer)

9:40 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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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: Forbes, @kaleekreider, @emmagkeller, @curtisbeast, @1bobcohn, @brianstelter and @anupkaphle

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: The Wrap, Forbes, m.cjr.org, WWD Media Headlines, BuzzFeed, @jamesfallows, Speakeasy, @petersgoodman, @sophblack, @pkafka, Reinventing the Newsroom, @bobstep, @jaredbkeller, Crikey, @sdkstl, @kvox, @dkthomp, @dangillmor, AdAge, BtoB Magazine, FishbowlDC, GigaOM and The Huffington Post

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: Columbia Journalism Review, The National Memo, Washington Post, Forbes, Reuters, Washington Wire, @timharford, WGBH News, Guardian, Digits, LA Biz Observed, Quartz, CNET, Memex 1.1 and DealBook

David Remnick / New Yorker:

Donald Graham's Choice — “The pattern of a newspaperman's life is like the plot of ‘Black Beauty,’ ” A.J. Liebling wrote. “Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Wonkblog, @gabyhinsliff, @mattgarrahan, @magger, Slate, Forbes, Hit & Run and Washington Post

Laura Bennett / New Republic:

Author of Bezos Book: 'He's Buying a Lot of Political Influence' — Businessweek senior writer Brad Stone has written a book about Amazon—titled The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon—that will be released by Little, Brown in October. Stone spent several years reporting the book …

Discussion: Business Insider, AllThingsD, Slate, DealBook, BBC, @ehmccormick, The Week, Washington Post and MarketWatch

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

Here's Why I Think Jeff Bezos Bought The Washington Post — Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider, so in the wake of news that he's buying the Washington Post, folks have been asking me two questions: — What's it like being owned or invested in by Jeff Bezos?

Discussion: @lrozen, The Switch, @sree and The Verge

Evan McMurry / Mediaite:

'This Isn't Rupert Murdoch': Bob Woodward Praises ‘Innovator’ Jeff Bezos, Predicts ‘Renaissance In Reporting’ — Bob Woodward, a man more associated with the Washington Post than almost any living figure, spoke to MSNBC's Morning Joe about yesterday's shocking sale of the paper to Amazon's Jeff Bezos …

Discussion: Forbes

Emily Bell / Guardian:
Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post: a marriage of old media and new money

Discussion: Washington Post, Bloomberg, SocialTimes, @distantisaluti, New Republic, metamedia, TechCrunch, @paullewis, @emilybell, @ceciliamarie, @rosental, @anneapplebaum, @matthewwells, @hofrench, @digiphile, @benjaminjackson and @moorehn

David Taintor / Adweek:

Quartz Lets Readers Comment on Specific Paragraphs — Quartz is taking reader comments to the margins. — Atlantic Media's 10-month-old business publication on Tuesday introduced a new feature that lets readers weigh in on—and publish comments right next to—individual paragraphs within articles rather …

Discussion: GigaOM, Journalism.co.uk, eMedia Vitals, Talking Biz News, @mims and The Next Web

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.

Gerry Shih / Reuters:

Nielsen study links Twitter chatter with TV ratings — (Reuters) - A frenzy of Twitter chatter about a broadcast program generally means more viewers are tuning in, while more popular TV shows generate more Twitter activity, a new study by Nielsen has found.