Bezos bails out Washington Post

Amazon's founder has surprised many with his about-turn purchase of one of America's leading newspapers.

Last year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told German newspaper Berliner Zeitung that the only future for printed newspapers was as an extravagant service in luxury hotels. So the news that one of the world's richest men was to buy the Washington Post, one of America's leading newspapers, came as quite a surprise. While the $250m price tag was effectively loose change alongside Bezos' $28bn fortune, the question of why a lynchpin of the "new economy" would buy an unprofitable business in a deeply troubled industry intrigued many.

What the commentators said

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