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Technology investors are taking recent interest in print media business. A recent addition to this list is the founder of Amazon.com, who on Monday purchased the 136-year-old The Washington Post for a sum of $250 million. Jeff Bezos, builder of Amazon, world’s largest web retailer and cloud servers’ provider, is entitled to take the newspaper of yore ahead, with his innovative thinking and radical approach.
Jeff bought The Washington Post, independent of Amazon.com. Amy Webb, CEO of Webbmedia Group suggested that there is a very strong connection between tech and media community. Thus, technology investors are starting publication houses like, Texas Tribune and Bay Citizen. Jeff along with the mother company also bought other newspapers like the Express, Southern Maryland and the Gazette newspapers.
According to some, this is going to be challenge for Jeff. The recent events show that the print media is a tough job for the newcomers. Newsweek over the years had many owners. The list varies from entrepreneur to billionaire resulting in being handed out to International Business Times at the end. Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook is now the major shareholder of the New Republic. An important factor of this kind of merging is the amalgamation of technology with ethnicity. Chris soon announced the remodeling of the New Republic, putting in that it will also focus on mobile and tablet application.
Other newspapers, which, recently changed hands are The Boston Globe and Roanoke Times. It is purchased by John Henry From New York Times Co. for $70 million. Berkshire Hathaway of Warren Buffet bought the latter adding almost 60 publications to its already existing ones.
Many investors see journalism as an act of social service. Hence, they do not intend to strike a lucrative deal. In 2009, the Hearst Corp announced that they are planning to either close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle. After which, the private equity leader Warren Hellman helped with a sum of $5 million to begin a non-profit organization, Bay Area News Project. These investments are more of philanthropic nature than of real profit generation scheme. John Thornton took the initiative to begin Texas Tribune, investing around $1 million. Now, one-third of its income comes from philanthropy and the rest from events and sponsorship.
Jeff Bezos as the new owner of The Washington Post is all set to modify and reform the Washington Post. It will be given a new name. John Morton, a former reporter is optimistic. He puts in that not many newspapers have the kind of standing or background like that of The Washington Post. It surely is a good thing of the daily social media. Being one of the oldest newspapers, it is widely read by all sections of the society; from the President and the senators down to the lower strata of the society. The change of name will not result in an alteration of the employees. Publisher of the newspaper, Katharine Weymouth will continue to be its top editors.
Time will only tell whether Jeff’s deal was a part of profit making venture or an attempt for social work. Thornton remarks that Bezos has adopted a mid-way of offering a community in a solemn way. Whatever the cause may be the print media is surely to gain from it.