146 Citizens
For the next two years, beyond the surprise of one of the most venerable news titles in the United States now belonging to a big tech mogul,
much of Bezos’s influence on the newspaper appeared largely benevolent
and not especially surprising. In a 2014 interview with Henry Blodget for
Business Insider, he expanded on his claim that he knew little about the
newspaper business with an observation that he did know a great deal
about the Internet.
88
On the whole, it appeared that he had no intention
of becoming involved in the paper’s editorial direction but instead would
concentrate on making it “a media and technology company”.
89
By the
end of 2015, commentators such as Lukas Alpert and Jack Marshall at
The Wall Street Journal were observing that Bezos involvement in the
newspaper was having a direct influence in the operations of the Post,
although not necessarily in the manner that most would necessarily have
expected or feared: without particularly interfering in the editorial direction of his staff, Bezos brought with him a focus on customer experience that became “a near mandate within the news operation”.
90
Hülsen likewise noted that Bezos injected considerable enthusiasm for
a digital future at the title, but also transformed the core mission from
fulfilling the expectations of readers to engaging customers, evident in
47 per cent growth of online visitors to the website within the space of
a year.
91
By January 2016, he was investing in physical infrastructure,
having moved journalists from “drab offices” atop a former printing
press to sleek spaces on K Street.
92
In an interview to promote his book The Last of the President’s Men
in 2016, when asked by Dan Kennedy what effect the founder of Amazon had made on the Post, Bob Woodward replied simply: “I think he’s
helping us as a business.”
93
With Bezos’s focus on digital rather than
print, the Post finally invested itself fully in online technologies so that it
performed much better on the web and on mobile, although after three
years, it was not entirely clear either how much of its growing success
was due to such improvements in performance or Bezos’s deep pockets. Furthermore, alongside such vast financial resources, the location of
the Post in Washington and its proprietor’s ability to channel the news
site through various Amazon resources made it difficult to see whether
the changes being made at one such newspaper could be replicated elsewhere. Nonetheless, as Kennedy observed, not all such changes were
due entirely to Bezos’s almost unique status as one of the richest men in
the world: first of all, by taking the company private, Bezos was able to
ignore the demands that had been made on the title as a publicly traded
paper under the Grahams, allowing him to invest (slowly, it should be
noted) in new staff without worrying about demands for short-term
profitability. In addition, the focus of the new title was now fixed on
implementing technological changes that would allow the site to benefit
from digital as opposed to print distribution, and as part of this, the Post
grew massively in terms of its online footprint, moving ahead of The
For the next two years, beyond the surprise of one of the most venerable news titles in the United States now belonging to a big tech mogul,
much of Bezos’s influence on the newspaper appeared largely benevolent
and not especially surprising. In a 2014 interview with Henry Blodget for
Business Insider, he expanded on his claim that he knew little about the
newspaper business with an observation that he did know a great deal
about the Internet.
88
On the whole, it appeared that he had no intention
of becoming involved in the paper’s editorial direction but instead would
concentrate on making it “a media and technology company”.
89
By the
end of 2015, commentators such as Lukas Alpert and Jack Marshall at
The Wall Street Journal were observing that Bezos involvement in the
newspaper was having a direct influence in the operations of the Post,
although not necessarily in the manner that most would necessarily have
expected or feared: without particularly interfering in the editorial direction of his staff, Bezos brought with him a focus on customer experience that became “a near mandate within the news operation”.
90
Hülsen likewise noted that Bezos injected considerable enthusiasm for
a digital future at the title, but also transformed the core mission from
fulfilling the expectations of readers to engaging customers, evident in
47 per cent growth of online visitors to the website within the space of
a year.
91
By January 2016, he was investing in physical infrastructure,
having moved journalists from “drab offices” atop a former printing
press to sleek spaces on K Street.
92
In an interview to promote his book The Last of the President’s Men
in 2016, when asked by Dan Kennedy what effect the founder of Amazon had made on the Post, Bob Woodward replied simply: “I think he’s
helping us as a business.”
93
With Bezos’s focus on digital rather than
print, the Post finally invested itself fully in online technologies so that it
performed much better on the web and on mobile, although after three
years, it was not entirely clear either how much of its growing success
was due to such improvements in performance or Bezos’s deep pockets. Furthermore, alongside such vast financial resources, the location of
the Post in Washington and its proprietor’s ability to channel the news
site through various Amazon resources made it difficult to see whether
the changes being made at one such newspaper could be replicated elsewhere. Nonetheless, as Kennedy observed, not all such changes were
due entirely to Bezos’s almost unique status as one of the richest men in
the world: first of all, by taking the company private, Bezos was able to
ignore the demands that had been made on the title as a publicly traded
paper under the Grahams, allowing him to invest (slowly, it should be
noted) in new staff without worrying about demands for short-term
profitability. In addition, the focus of the new title was now fixed on
implementing technological changes that would allow the site to benefit
from digital as opposed to print distribution, and as part of this, the Post
grew massively in terms of its online footprint, moving ahead of The