Brick by brick : Columbia Journalism Review

Excerpt from an extensive profile of The Washington Post

"Then $250 million changed hands, and the paper that bowed out was suddenly captained by the digital-era equivalent of Alexander the Great. And not only that, but it instantly became the only member of an industry facing massive digital transformation to be owned by a man who had wrought that transformation—and who had the money to do it again. It went from being a newspaper in retreat to being the only legacy media company in America that can consider itself a technology property.

The Post is once again hungry to be a dominant force in American journalism, and the newsroom senses that the Graham era has been sealed off behind them. The only way out is to move forward. “I think Bezos is giving us a chance to show what we would have done if we had had that runway all along,” one editor said. “If we don’t figure it out, I would not blame the owner for replacing all of us.”"

Brick by brick : Columbia Journalism Review