The New WaPo

On August 4, 1947, the Washington Post Co was founded as the parent company of the paper by Philip and Katherine Graham. Since 1877, it was an excellent paper, servicing the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. This area is still, with world-wide communication, its primary audience.

Along with the New York Times, the Post printed what became known as The Pentagon Papers, a compilation of information, pictures and "classified" documents. Both papers brought a case ultimately to the Supreme Court, and the Court found for the papers and against the Nixon Administration. This was a victory for the first amendment and freedom of the press.

But on the weekend of June 17 and 18 in 1972, Bob Woodward, a local police reporter, was sitting in the local night court when five men were arraigned on charges in a third-rate burglary. With his reporter acumen, he knew this was a story of significant consequence. Within a few days, the paper began to uncover exactly what happened at the Watergate Apartment Complex, and where the trail led.

Like the New York Times, it became a paper of record. When the dust cleared on August 9, 1974, WaPo had won several Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage and in-depth journalism.

Over the years, WaPo was able to compete and succeed against other papers which proved that WaPo was the standard to bear. Papers like the Washington Times, DC Examiner, etc, sprang up to challenge WaPo's dominance on the region, but instead, WaPo met the challenges and still dominated.

Now, ironically on August 5, 2013, the current managers of WaPo, Donald Graham, CEO and Katharine Weymouth, Publisher announced to the staff and to the public that Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon, Inc, will be buying the paper and its affiliated businesses, along with Washingtonpost.com for an all cash transaction of $250million.

Mr Bezos has indicated that the existing management will stay on and he will stay in Seattle, Amazon's home.

The benefit here, as I see it, is that the Post will enjoy the expertise of a forward-thinking owner, who will allow the news experts run the day to day news operation, while monitoring the purse-strings. He possibly also gives the Post additional media to be read on his electronic devices, which would compete favorably with Apple's I-Pad and other readers.

It would have been a shame for the Post to die from its money-losing interests. This will give this find paper an opportunity to move on through the early 21st century, unencumbered by bad debt.

And Jeff Bezos now has bragging rights as the owner of a storied paper. A win for all.