Journalist Bob Woodward on Tuesday endorsed the sale of the Washington Post to Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos.
“This isn’t Rupert Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal. This is somebody who believes in the values that the Post has been prominent in practicing, and so I don’t see any downside,” Woodward said Tuesday on Morning Joe.
The iconic newspaper reported on Monday that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is set to buy it for $250 million. The paper remained under control of four generations of the Graham family for 80 years. Although the Post had suffered financially, there had been no rumors that it was for sale.
“We knew we could keep the Post alive, we knew it could survive, but our aspirations for the Post have always been higher than that, so we went to see if we could find a buyer…who could open the possibility of a better future for the Post,” Donald Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Co., said Monday during a Post interview.
The Post lost $49.3 million in the first six months of this year.
Woodward, along with Carl Bernstein, broke the news about the Watergate scandal for the newspaper. He currently serves as an associate editor.
“Anyone will tell you in the news business we don’t dig deep enough. I think this is somebody who digs deep,” Woodward said. “Whenever there is something that is big that’s done inefficiently, it’s an opportunity.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson said the general feeling in the Post newsroom is still shock.
“You have to be optimistic. Yesterday people were literally stunned at the staff meeting,” Robinson, a Post columnist, said Tuesday on the show. “It’s a day that none of us thought would ever come, yet here we are.”
The Boston Globe was also recently sold. Boston Red Sox owner John Henry bought the paper for $70 million. It was once bought for $1.1 billion.
“It’s sad,” Woodward said. “But we’re in this survival game and I think when you look at this, the bottom line in really everything surrounding it is good news.”
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Michele Richinick