James Greiff , Columnist

Washington Post by the Numbers

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is buying the Washington Post Co.'s newspaper division, which has been in a deep slide for years.

August 5, 2013 at 10:36 PM UTC

By James Greiff

James Greiff is an editor for Bloomberg Opinion. He was Wall Street news team leader at Bloomberg News and senior editor for Bloomberg Markets magazine. He previously reported on banking for the St. Petersburg Times and the Charlotte Observer.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Amazon.com Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Bezos had to be looking at something other than the numbers attached to the Washington Post Co. newspaper business, which he agreed to buy today for $250 million.

Those numbers tell a tale of unrelenting decline. Bezos isn't buying the rest of the company's businesses, which include the Kaplan educational test-preparation outfit, some broadcast properties and other print and online publications, including the news and opinion website Slate and Foreign Policy magazine.