The Washington Post has announced the sale of its flagship newspaper to the founder and chief executive of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos.
The Graham family has decided to end its control of one of the leading global news organizations after four generations of ownership for $250 million in cash from the founder of the Amazon.com.
Along with The Washington Post, all publications affiliated to The Washington Post and other businesses will be handed over to Bezos as part of the deal.
Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the deal and Bezos will be the sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days, according to sources.
Interestingly, The Washington Post is going to jump to a new, still-undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without The Washington Post tag.
"The Post could have survived under the company's ownership and been profitable for the foreseeable future. But we wanted to do more than survive. I'm not saying this guarantees success but it gives us a much greater chance of success," said Donald Graham, The Washington Post Company's chief executive.
Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world's richest men, in a statement to the employees of the Washington Post said, "The values of The Post do not need changing, and the newspaper's duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners."
"I won't be leading The Washington Post day to day. I am happily living in 'the other Washington,' where I have a day job that I love. Besides that, The Post already has an excellent leadership team that knows much more about the news business than I do, and I'm extremely grateful to them for agreeing to stay on," said Bozos.
He also added that there will be changes at the paper over the coming years with or without new ownership as "the Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business."
"I'm excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention," said Bezos.
