Donald Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co., is the son and grandson of its leaders for the past 80 years. And along with his niece, publisher Katharine Weymouth, Graham admitted in a video on The Post's website that the family simply didn't have the answers to questions about the paper's future.
"Katharine and I started to look at the numbers [and] realized this year, 2013, would be the seventh straight year of significant declining revenues," Graham explained. "We knew we could keep The Washington Post alive. We knew it could survive. But our aspirations have always been higher [than] that. So we went to see if we could find a buyer."
Or, one might think, a sucker. Jeff Bezos, founder of the online commerce giant Amazon, just paid $250 million for an unprofitable newspaper that looks unlikely to reverse its fortunes anytime soon.
The sale of The Post surprised many media watchers. Given the tough times in the news business, just why would a smart business leader do that?
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