"If it wasn’t clear that newspapers have become trophies for the wealthy with an interest in journalism or power — or a combination of both — it should be now,"
writes the
New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, one of many responding to
the news of Amazon's Jeff Bezos' purchase of the
Washington Post for $250 million and The Boston Red Sox' John Henry's buying the
Boston Globe for $70 million -- chump change for
both.
In an interesting take on the news, veteran Washington Post writer Carl Bernstein, who became a journalistic icon for the investigative pieces he wrote on the Watergate scandal in the
1970s, is bullish on Bezos, sending Politico's Dylan Byers
an email
that notes, in part:"I have high hopes that today’s announcement will represent a great moment in the history of a great institution: recognition that a new kind of
entrepreneurship and leadership, fashioned in the age of the new technology, is needed to lead not just
The Post, but perhaps the news business itself..."
And Ryan Chittum's response includes a forecast that the
Post's paywall "will fall quickly after Bezos takes over.... Bezos doesn’t really need the tacked-on revenue that
digital circulation will provide the
Post." Chittum also asks: "How much will the
Post’s editorial operations become a megaphone for [Bezos'] libertarian views and for
Amazon’s business interests?
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Read the whole story at Columbia Journalism Review »