Yet another famous newspaper has changed hands. The Washington Post has announced its pending sale to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, for $250 million. The Graham family, which has controlled the Post for four generations, waited two decades too long before liquidating the paper. Had they sold in 1993, when the Boston Globe sold for over a billion dollars, the price could have been 5 times as much as now, possibly more. Still, considering that the Globe just sold for a mere $70 million, also to an individual entrepreneur, the Post has fetched a very good price. It is hard to see this investment by Bezos as a short term play. Perhaps he has ideas on making the paper pay off in the digital age in a way nobody else has seen. Or perhaps he wants to be a Very Important Person in our nation's capital, where the Post wields enormous influence. We may be entering a period in which formerly great newspapers become the playthings of wealthy men, something that would be a return to...(Read Full Post)