maybe 80% of the washington post revenue most print newspapers revenue. so what i think bezos does is not to slay or actively get rid of that legacy business. it generates the cash. it generates a lot of money, and he is not averse to cash. but the advantage to having somebody like bezos owning the paper is number one, it s going to be private. so we re not going to have wall street analysts anxious about next quarter s figures. number two, he s got pockets deep enough for us to do the experimentation and the innovation that we need to do on the online side. okay, thanks. so that when the economics move there, we ll be there first. i m worried about the koch brothers. they re come for the chicago tribune and the l.a. times. they re coming. if they get a deal, god help us. anyway, thank you. up next, congress is on a five-week vacation, couldn t you tell? did they do anything while they were here? no. will they do anything when they come back? probably cause more trouble. t
remember, katharine weymouth is the publisher. i presume the arrangement will continue if it s an important endorsement or something like that, fred and katharine will have to be on the same page. i don t know if jeff bezos would want to be involved. if it s his only newspaper, why wouldn t he want to have an influence who you endorse? maybe that s not the point of his getting a newspaper. maybe it s it may be the point is just as brad said. maybe it s to disrupt newspapering the way he disrupted retail, the way he disrupted book selling. so you think he has a business model, a way to make the paper make money? my guess, i don t know the man. my guess is he s got the germ of an idea. it s not a fully fledged idea yet. he s got a spend time at the post and figure out how things work. brad, is there a workable known way to make money with newspapers in metropolitan areas? suburban newspapers can deal with offset. i don t know how they do it. the traffic is different.
but can you make money in a big city newspaper with traffic concerns where you got to get the paper out physically way ahead of time? how do you make money with a paper these days. up against everything else. right. i think bezos is betting that you can. the first thing that you do is slay the old business. you let the traditional sources of revenue, the subscriber base, you know, the ad revenue, print ad revenue gracefully sunset and build a new business online. i think that s the opportunity he ll go after. online? yeah. and he s got, you know this is $250 million. for him it s a drop in the bucket. he brings us long-term operating philosophy, willing to sustain a lot of losses sometimes to the consternation of amazon shareholders. i think we ll see him bring that operating philosophy to the washington post. you said the wrong word for me, online. i m worried here. that s not a newspaper. look, 20 years from now, do you think we re going to be dealing with physical news
as when it is taken away from us. and like so many of you, i am a newspaper reader. i love the papers. when i m in another country, i love getting a copy of the international herald tribune or usa today or both. i love reading about america from europe. and every day you see me here at this desk, i spend a good day of the morning loving the new york times and the washington post and politico the political trade paper, and sometimes the wall street journal as well. i love the feel of the broad sheet, the excitement of a tab, the turning of the pages, the checking of the sports section, and the scores, the celebrity news, just enough, that is, and the opinions on the op-ed page. i want to know what people like me and also not like me are thinking. newspapers are great for one great reason. they throw it at you. you don t go looking for a piece on pakistan but there it is staring at you when you go to the jump what you are looking for. newspapers not only tell you what is new on
journal, those have pushed a right-wing agenda. the conservative koch brothers are on the hunt to buy up newspapers as well. the question is a pressing one. will the new money have the same guts and drive as the old money or will the papers they buy become political mouthpieces in some cases to the far right. anyway, eugene robinson is an expert, an msnbc political analyst. and brad stone is a columnist with business week and the author of the upcoming book the everything store: jeff bezos and the age of amazon. right to you, brad. will bezos maintain the independent of the newspaper and be like the old money, grahams and willing to say i m willing to bleed economically so this paper will live? absolutely. i don t see him as having an overt political agenda. i think his idealism will be a business idealism about disrupting the newspaper s old