“Don Graham wouldn’t have sold the Washington Post to anyone who didn’t have respect for the eternal verities of journalism,” says Jeff Jarvis, CUNY professor
The Washington Post is in safe hands according to Jeff Jarvis, professor of journalism at City University New York and blogger at BuzzMachine.
Yesterday's $250m sale of the newspaper, along with several other titles, to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was a surprise to almost everyone in the media industry.
What does a man, whose online company irrecoverably changed the landscape of traditional retailing, want with a print newspaper? Jarvis believes the Amazon CEO is more than qualified to turn The Washington Post into a profitable news group in the digital age.
Speaking to The Drum he said: “I hope that the work Bezos brings is his key skills and understanding on how to build key relationships with us [the readers] as individuals and to serve us greater relevance as a result and no longer serve us as a mass.
“That’s what Amazon does brilliantly. Some might say that what it does is sell or distribute content, but I think that’s far too narrow minded. What Bezos really has done, unlike any other company, is know me [the consumer]. He knows what to recommend because he knows what’s relevant to me.
“That’s a key skill to bring to journalism. I’ve been arguing that journalism must stop thinking of itself as a content manufacturer and start realising that it must be a surface business which really means it has to be a relationship business.”
However, Jarvis added: “My fear about Bezos is that he is highly secretive. That’s part of his business at Amazon. My hope there is that he will realise the necessity for news organisations to be transparent and also realise the benefits of the entire industry in performing his experiments and the development.”
So will Bezos’ buy out impact the quality journalism that the Washington Post prides itself on: “Bezos said yesterday he prides the Washington post for waiting to get the right answers and so on,” said Jarvis. “I think that Donald Graham wouldn’t have sold the Washington Post to anyone who didn’t have the respect for what the dean at my school might call the eternal verities of journalism.”
Jarvis ended by telling The Drum: “Now, you can’t invest in the Washington Post as Bezos owns it but under his ownership – I might even consider investing!”