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Newspapers Get Great PR From Jeff Bezos Purchase of Washington Post

This article is more than 10 years old.

Everyone knows the newspaper industry is dying.

A 2012 American Society of News Editors survey found 2,600 full-time jobs at newspapers were lost last year and almost one-third of all jobs were lost since 2000.

This week's purchase of the Washington Post by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million gives the industry a much-need financial shot in the arm, likely saving hundreds of jobs in the legendary newsroom.  But the spiritual and public relations boost, at least symbolically, is almost as large.

Despite what some pundits have surmised, I don't think this is a sympathy or nostalgic purchase.  The New York Times noted:  "The purchase of The Washington Post fits into one of the more eclectic — some might say, eccentric — patterns of investing and charitable giving of today’s billionaires. On top of the usual ream of stakes in technology start-ups like Uber and Twitter, Mr. Bezos has indulged his passion for space by financing the recovery from the seabed of an Apollo rocket that carried the first men to the moon."

The Daily Beast noted the gloom inside the newsroom tinged with hope at the prospect of jobs being saved.

" 'It’s very sad,' said Post associate editor Bob Woodward , who, along with his partner Carl Bernstein under the leadership of executive editor Ben Bradlee, led the Post to a Pulitzer Prize for their investigation of Richard Nixon’s crime-ridden White House. 'But if there’s somebody who can succeed, it’s Bezos. He’s the innovator, he’s got the money and the patience, so we’ll see. I think in some ways, this may be the Post’s last chance to survive, at least in some form of what it was.' Woodward’s bittersweet reaction was typical of veterans, who were at once grief-stricken at the prospect of losing the Grahams as owners and hopeful that Bezos will find a way to save their jobs.

Yes, Bezos is worth $25 billion and this represents only 1% of his net worth, but look at what he's done for online retailing and recently, the book business.  For books, Bezos has monetized content on paper and electronically.

Henry Blodget of the Business Insider, a company in which Bezos has invested, predicts the sale will be good for the Post and in the industry.

"Unlike the typical financial investor, moreover, Jeff Bezos really is focused on the long term," Blodget says.  "Whenever there's an opportunity to reinvest would-be profits today in an exciting project that might pay off tomorrow, Jeff Bezos will take it. And when he's an investor in your company, you'll feel like you should take it, too. So, anyone rooting for the Washington Post to transform into a successful digital business should be thrilled that Jeff Bezos is buying it. (Anyone hoping the Washington Post will never change, meanwhile, should find some other status quo to cling to. The status quo at the Post is dying with or without Bezos.)"

Other newspapers, like the Boston Globe, were recently sold for a fraction of what they were purchased for a few years ago.  The Los Angeles Times is also reportedly for sale.  But the Washington Post purchased may signal the newspaper industry is dying, but not dead.

The physical production and distribution of feature and breaking news stories, along with a liberal supply of brightly colored advertisements shoved between the pages of a broadsheet and delivered to homes and offices, will probably not survive in its current format.  And bloggers taking stories from other sources and photo-shopping squiggly lines over the faces of celebrities or taking potshots at the President seconds after his speech, any speech, won't attract the education, intelligent audiences that advertisers crave.

Bezos correctly guessed the newspaper industry is really the news-gathering industry.  With a team of talented, professional journalists and a legendary, prestigious name behind them, the Washington Post has a great chance to survive.  That's the positioning statement and the public relations strategy I would advocate, and the Bezos announcement has already moved in that direction.  Industry analysts believe in someone as smart at Bezos is buying, there may be great long-term value.

As one of the many former journalists who was laid off in past 20 years, I would love to see Bezos succeed.  In 1994, I remember Hearst executive Frank Bennack addressing our newsroom at the San Antonio Light telling us how proud he was that Hearst believed in the newspaper industry while announcing he was going to shutter our paper and purchase the San Antonio Express -News.

So maybe the wish for Bezos and the Washington Post to succeed is emotional and optimistic. But the rational side of me says Bezos has found an undervalued asset and will find a way to make money and change the news-gathering business.

As Blodget notes, "...digital news and e-commerce businesses can be something that no traditional competitor can be: infinitely broad and infinitely deep. Stores and traditional media properties are limited by space constraints: They either have to be specialized, like Best Buy or Automotive Week, or, generalists, like Wal-Mart or the current Washington Post. Digital businesses don't have those constraints. They can be both broad and deep. Another similarity is that digital news and e-commerce businesses can be deeply personalized. Just as every return visitor to Amazon sees a different front page, every return visitor to a news site can be presented with a different story selection."

Dying, but not dead.  The newspaper industry, I mean, news-GATHERING and distribution industry, may be off life support and on its way to a healthy existence, even if it will soon look different than we can imagine.  The fact that we are talking about newspapers in a positive light with hundreds of stories focused on the life, not the death, of them, means Bezos and the Washington Post have started the public relations efforts on an extremely successful first step.