The Washington Post wasn't taking any chances. Devoting yesterday's front page to the Graham family's sale of the "flagship paper" to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, its lead story described Bezos as a "relentless business innovator" who had "lots of patience". This trait, it suggested, would serve Bezos well "amid the tumult of today's crumbling newspaper business".
Indeed, the Washington Post of 2013 is not the Washington Post of the Woodward and Bernstein era, though it may continue to trade off its legacy.
Its $250 million price tag – pocket money for Bezos, who is worth an estimated $28 billion – has been ignominiously described as “a quarter of an Instagram”, in reference to the photo-sharing platform’s $1 billion sale.
But at least it compared favourably to the $70 million the New York Times Company fetched for the Boston Globe, which it sold to Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC owner John Henry on Saturday. When it bought the Boston Globe 20 years ago, it paid $1.1 billion.
For love or money
Billionaires become newspaper proprietors for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they are vanity purchases. They have been used as a proxy for influence in the corridors of power, or as a tool for cross-selling. They were once reliable cash cows in their own right.
Some media owners do seem to have ink in their blood – the Graham family, which had had stewardship of the Washington Post since 1933, said they had loved their newspaper. It was just that Bezos had the financial capacity to love it in the way that counts.
What’s in it for Bezos? Is this the warm glow of philanthropy? Is this part of the great Kindle content-platform strategy? Or is this deal merely the latest impulse-buy of a man who also takes punts on space travel and builds giant clocks in the side of mountains?
Yes, Bezos (49) has invested tens of millions in something called the 10,000-Year Clock, also known as the Clock of the Long Now, which is being built near his Texas home. It has a “century hand” that advances once every 100 years and is “a symbol for long-term thinking”.
Washington whimsy
Incredibly, his investment in the Washington Post seems more of a whim. The hush-hush negotiations between investment firm Allen & Co – hired by chairman and chief executive Don Graham to sell the company – and Bezos were on again, then off again, then on again. Amazingly, Bezos told Post reporters he didn't "want to imply that I have a worked-out plan". Well, who in the newspaper industry does?
While sports tycoon Henry spoke of the "community commitment and effort" needed to turn around the Boston Globe, Bezos referenced "uncharted terrain" and said the Post would "require experimentation". Perhaps that is closer to what newspapers need now.
Given that the industry is in dire need of a transition to a viable new business model, there are many worse investors to have attracted than Bezos, the man Fortune magazine dubbed the "ultimate disrupter". His eccentricities are probably no greater than those of most billionaires – space tourism is a growth industry, after all.
Still, the two main images on the front of the Washington Post yesterday tell their own story. Below the fold, there is a 1971 snap of the late Katharine Graham laughing at an ebullient Ben Bradlee, the Post's former executive editor. Above it, lies this week's photograph of her son Don, solemnly delivering news of the family's exit from the company to a room of tense, glum-faced staff.
