Can new-media visionary Jeff Bezos save the Washington Post?
Twenty-nine years ago today Richard Nixon resigned the US presidency to forestall impeachment after being exposed by The Washington Post over his role in the Watergate scandal.
The sale should give journalists and newspaper owners around the world pause to reflect. The paper lost the national sense of direction and flair for innovation that once set it apart, but it was its failure to adapt to the new-media environment that sealed its fate. Its sale to an internet visionary, at a time when traditional media are going digital with integrated editorial operations, is to be welcomed as being as good as any, given his achievements. The internet has so transformed the news business and squeezed its revenue that Bezos admits he is leading the paper into uncharted terrain, where the only certainty is change, for which he does not have a specific plan.
Twenty years ago Bezos understood that the internet would have enormous impact. Part of that impact is the inroads blogs have made into the market for reporting and commentary. If The Washington Post is to show the way forward for old media, Bezos will need all the entrepreneurial spirit, vision and patience that created Amazon and the Kindle tablet e-reader.
The US$250 million he paid for the newspaper is a drop in the bucket of his estimated US$25 billion fortune. But to get his money back, he will have to show he can still think outside the box and work out a way for newspapers to thrive in the environment in which he has made his money.