As bleak as the industry sometimes seems, the news media can be profitable—but only if companies better serve their customers, transform their business models, and alter their financial time-horizons. That includes having the kind of patience that Bezos demonstrates at Amazon. Outlets that cuts back on basic services—especially reporting—will improve their near-term quarterly profit, but squander the future…At Amazon, Bezos didn’t just “crack the digital code” in a technological sense; he understood how the Internet changed the economics of serving consumers.
Julius Genachowski and Steven Waldman, New Republic, Newspapers Should Be More like Amazon: What Jeff Bezos can teach the Washington Post.
FJP: A positive take on Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post Co. for $250 million dollars in cash, in the midst of many shocked reactions.
Here’s a snippet of the e-commerce king’s letter to the Washington Post employees:
So, let me start with something critical. The values of The Post do not need changing. The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners. We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads, and we’ll work hard not to make mistakes.
[…] There will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years. That’s essential and would have happened with or without new ownership. The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.
(via futurejournalismproject)
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