"What is Jeff Bezos thinking?" by John F. Harris, Politico (05 August 2013) ssg: Well they have tried everything else and newspapers are dying a very unpretty death, exacerbated by a partisan obscuration of the difference between news and opinion. So why not bring a mass digital retail sensibility to proliferation of the news? Washington, DC, USA. It has been a good long while — a full generation ago — since The Washington Post was Ben Bradlee’s newspaper, and since the Post name stood for unchallenged editorial and financial power in Washington. No news organization had more influence in setting the agenda in the nation’s capital. No daily newspaper was more lucrative, or had greater reach into the daily life of one the nation’s largest and most affluent metropolises. Even so, the news that the Post is being sold to tech billionaire Jeffrey Bezos was a thunderbolt. If you had asked me about this last week (as someone who was probably privy to the likelihood of a sale did ask me), I would have said — and did say — that it was inconceivable that the Grahams would sell a franchise so intimately linked to both their family’s history and the nation’s. The news is of obvious interest to anyone who cares about the media business, about Washington or about coverage of national politics. In addition to that, my vantage point is more personal. The Politico newsroom’s co-founders spent significant parts of their careers at the Post, and I spent the first 21 years of my career at the place. In short, I view it from the perspective of alumnus and competitor, as well as friend of people who work at all ranks there. From this perspective, the news is not just stunning but confusing. Click on the article title below to read the complete text at Politico. #news #history #culture #media #newspapers #thewashingtonpost #internet #jeffbezos #amazon #politics #opinion #video #sharongaughan
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:44:08 +0000
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