Washington Post media columnist Paul Farhi tweeted on July 25, 2017:
Amazon doesn’t own the Washington Post.
Several days later Washington Post senior editor Marc Fisher tweeted:
Amazon doesn’t own the Washington Post.
They were making the point that Amazon head Jeff Bezos bought the Post as an individual.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank on October 24 told Amazon owner Jeff Bezos he should locate the company’s second headquarters in Washington, D.C.:
Dear Mr. Bezos: Jeff (If I may),
I write to you not only as an employee of the Amazon Washington Post but also as one of your most faithful customers.
Milbank wasn’t being entirely serious but it is increasingly clear, despite protestations from Farhi and Fisher, that the Post and Amazon are one and the same. Bezos is becoming the world’s richest man by Amazon offering low prices on books and everything else.
He’ll sell you a Washington Post subscription (print and digital) for $89.99 a year, while the New York Times (print and digital) on Amazon Prime is $858 a year. For a digital only subscription on Amazon Prime, the Post is free for six months and then $3.99 a month, while the Times is free for 14 days and then $19.99 a month.
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Update from Bloomberg: A post-earnings surge in Amazon.com Inc. shares Friday pushed Jeff Bezos to the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time, vaulting him ahead of Bill Gates who had held the top spot as the richest person on Earth for more than four years.
The founder and chief executive officer of the retail juggernaut added $10.4 billion to his net worth as Amazon shares rose 13 percent, the most in 2 1/2 years, a day after the company reported quarterly sales and profit that surpassed analysts’ estimates. His wealth briefly eclipsed that of Gates, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder, on an intraday basis on July 27, but Amazon shares ended that day lower, leaving Bezos at No. 2.
At the close of U.S. markets Friday, Bezos had a net worth of $93.8 billion, $5.1 billion ahead of Gates on the Bloomberg index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. Gates, 61, had been the world’s richest person since 2013.
Barnesandnoble.com offers a NOOK/compatible Washington Post subscription for $129 per year, or $12 per month and the New York Times subscription for $239.88 per year. I’m not sure what to make of this nor how to normalize for the separate cost of Amazon Prime.