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5 Sep 2013

One click wonder? Amazon’s boss impresses his new staff

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Above all, don’t be boring! Amazon founder Jeff Bezos impresses staff at his latest purchase – the Washington Post. But one reporter admits: things are going to change around here.

Jeff Bezos

It certainly was not an easy crowd: a couple of hundred hacks, with Watergate veterans Ben Bradlee and Bob Woodward right there in the front row. But the Post’s new owner Jeff Bezos managed to win them over, managing a lively round of applause at the end of his Q and A session with staff.

The internet tycoon spent two days hanging out at the Washington Post, meeting employees and giving away a few signals about how he intends to run things from now on.

Making money is important, he said. Stories need to be more exciting. And the future lies with tablet computers – with the feel and look of a traditional paper.

Bezos is buying the Post for the bargain price of just $250m, and they are hoping he will prove to be their saviour. He has already admitted he does not have all the answers for a newspaper industry in decline, but it appears he has a few, at least.

If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s. Jeff Bezos

“All businesses need to be young forever”, he said. “If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.” So while he was happy to pay tribute to the glory days of the Washington Post’s investgative journalism, the past, he declared, must stay in the past.

There was a welcome commitment to staff numbers, and a few hints that some of the old supplements that are now only available in digital form, might make a comeback.

This, he promised, was a time to put the readers first, not the advertisers – a pledge which must have reassured those who feared a one-click future under the Amazon boss.

But what makes a newspaper a great newspaper, rather than a series of stories, is that unique editorial mix – something you can’t simply cobble together yourself via a search engine.

And Bezos seemed to get this. He spoke of the “daily ritual” of reading the paper as a whole – “people will buy a package”, he said, “they will not pay for a story”.

At the end of it all, the assembled hacks said they admired his confidence, and his touch of humility, while Ben Bradley was staying positive too. “I thought he was original. That’s what impressed me the most”.

According to the Post, the new boss already has a nickname – El Jeffe, a play on the Spanish for “chief”. And there is a chance the paper could finally get a much needed technology upgrade.

At the moment, then, the Post appears to have a future, and a new owner who has promised not to intervene with the editorial line. The initival verdict, then? Hail to the Chief.

Felicity Spector writes about US affairs for Channel 4 News