Billionaire Jeffrey Bezos to purchase Washington Post
The Washington Post, one of the United State leading national newspapers, announced Monday that it had been sold for $250 million to Jeffrey Bezos, the multi-billionaire founder of online retail firm Amazon.com. ● Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post is only the latest in a series of acquisitions of major newspapers by wealthy investors. It comes only days after billionaire hedge fund manager and Boston Red Sox owner John Henry announced plans to buy the Boston Globe from the New York Times Co. ● The sale follows reports that several billionaires, including the Koch Brothers, key backers of the right-wing Republican Tea Party movement, have been looking into purchasing the Los Angeles Times, one of eight newspapers that the Tribune Co. has been seeking to sell. ● The Washington Post, the leading newspaper in the nation’s capital, is known for having published the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and helping to expose the criminal activities of the Nixon administration related to the Watergate scandal, which led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Since then, along with the rest of the US “mainstream” media, the Post has moved steadily to the right, backing the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and editorially lobbying for more aggressive action in Syria and elsewhere. In domestic policy, it has generally supported the attacks on democratic rights carried out in the name of the “war on terror.” It defends the NSA mass spying operations and supports austerity measures. The newspaper has a national readership and a daily circulation of nearly 475,000. It has been owned by the Graham family for 80 years. [Image]