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“One was just sold to a baron of the Internet age,” Paul Farhi writes about The Washington Post’s parallels with The New York Times. “How long before the other one is?”
Farhi reels out reasons the Sulzberger-Ochs family, which controls the Times, might want to sell. Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy “reiterated the company’s intent to remain independent,” he writes.
The Graham family’s decision to sell the Post “gives people inside the [Sulzberger] family who’ve wanted to sell ammunition,” news industry analyst Ken Doctor tells Michael Calderone and Eleazar David Melendez.
“I can tell you that a lot of rich people have plunked down huge amounts of money in front of the Sulzbergers and they’ve not bitten yet,” Sulzberger family biographer Alex S. Jones told them. “I think never is –- you know, you never say never. But I don’t think so now. I think they feel like they’ve got a future.”
Gwen Ifill interviewed Washington Post Co. chief executive Don Graham for a segment broadcast Tuesday night. Graham echoed his earlier statements about why his family decided to sell the paper, saying: “We would have had to keep cutting expenses as long as revenue fell. And our aspirations for the Post have always been way more than survival.” But he also talked a little bit about new owner Jeff Bezos.
He’s principled. He’s also a reader and a very good writer, as his statement to our staff, which has been widely quoted, reflects. He wrote that himself. …
Unusually, out at Amazon, meetings don’t start with slide presentations or PowerPoints. At Jeff’s request, they start with whoever convenes the meeting writing an essay.
Related: Amazon’s Bezos buys The Washington Post | How Bezos, in his first memo to Washington Post staff, achieved believable optimism | Bezos has what The Washington Post needs: Imagination and patience | What journalists need to know about Bezos purchase of The Washington Post | How The Washington Post broke its own news about Bezos
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