Is it the end of one of America’s greatest newspaper families?
The Washington Post, one of the country’s oldest newspapers and bastions of investigative journalism, announced on Monday that is selling ownership of the paper to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million. It seems that Bezos, a man whose business has conquered Washington State, is now going on to conquer Washington D.C.
The Graham family has owned control and editorial leadership of the Post for the past 80 years. The sale is expected to go through in the next 60 days.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, political features writer for our partner The New York Times,says she was floored when she heard the news.
Stolberg’s intimate profile of The Washington Post’s Chairwoman and Publisher, Katharine Weymouth, whose mother’s family was owned the paper since 1933, published only days before the sale was announced.
Today Stolberg joins us to talk about how Weymouth has sold the family dynasty in order to keep it alive.
The story you just read is available for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
Make a gift today, and you’ll get us one step closer to our goal of raising $25,000 by June 14. We need your help now more than ever!