When billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013, the storied paper was “upside down.” It was bleeding money. The Internet had stolen all the advantages of print media; if the Post was any other business, Bezos would have probably walked away.
Instead, he listened to then-publisher Donald Graham’s pitch on the importance of saving a flagship of press freedom. And he bought in—indeed, with his bulging pockets, Bezos was hailed as a savior. But that was then, and this is now.
Full disclosure, I worked for Newsweek when it was owned by the Post. I love the Post. I retrieve it every morning outside my door (even though I mostly read it online these days). I will continue to support the paper, and I urge it to stay true to its slogan, “Democracy dies in darkness.”