Washington Post Sells At Deep Discount

I see Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post for a measly $250 million bucks.

Free shipping for everybody!

I say measly because it was worth in the neighborhood of $2 billion just 10 years ago. The Wall Street Journal, by contrast, was sold to Rupert Murdoch for $7 billion. Think about that.

In the long run, there will be room for WSJ. Will there be for the WaPo?

Like most traditional print media outlets, they failed to adopt to the changing media landscape. Notably the reality that the competition has been forever changed. You can sit around babbling about how much you don't respect blogging like the Bob Costa's and Michael Wilbon's of this world (as if some sports bloggers can't match the with and writing talents of what the mainstream can offer. In fact, I submit the quality of writers on ESPN is mediocre at times but that's me) letting the world blow by you or you can adapt and shift your business model to face the new paradigm.

The Post, like many liberal papers, just didn't do it. I must admit though, it's less insufferable than The New York Times.

As for Bezos himself, much has been made of his political leanings. It's been claimed he's "libertarian" but there's no evidence of that. He has given more in donations to Democrats than Republicans but that too is not indicative of anything.

We'll see. The question is can he put the paper on a more prosperous and sustainable path?

I'm always leery of people from other industries buying up assets. Just because you were successful in "online retailing" in this instance, doesn't mean you understand media. No one knows what his motives are but judging by the price he paid, it's not unthinkable he can set it on track to at least break even.

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Yes, I know. The Enlightenment segment. Haven't forgotten.

Like people care.

But I hope to at least pump in one more post about it.