Honeymoon at the Washington Post: what's next?

Executive Editor Marty Baron interviews Post owner Jeff Bezos. (Washington Post photo)

Note: Marty Baron will be speaking here at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, on Jan. 26.

The Washington Post is following the strategy of world domination of its owner, Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest online retailer.

In contrast with most of the newspapers in the U.S. and Europe, the Washington Post is hiring journalists and engineers, investing in new technology, and expanding into new markets. Bezos has  global ambitions for the Post, as Newsweek detailed in a recent analysis. 

In the same way that he built the business of Amazon, Bezos has committed to absorbing financial losses in the short term with an eye toward gaining market share over the long term. It's a strategy that requires an owner with deep pockets.  

Why investigative journalism is good business

Versión en español aquí.

I may have misled people for the last few years by saying that investigative journalism is not a business but a public service.

Other people -- namely Felix Salmon, Jeff Bezos and four journalists cited by Journalism.co.uk -- are reminding me that investigative journalism does, in fact, have commercial value.

First, Felix Salmon, the Reuters blogger. He made the case in a recent post that while investigative journalism may not produce the web traffic of popular topics, a media organization reaps intangible but valuable benefits. 

For example, advertisers will see that a site is a serious news outlet "and be that much more willing to pay premium rates to advertise on the site as a result. Readers who like having fast news during the day like having meatier stuff to read over the weekend," Salmon says. 

Bezos purchase of Post has parallels in China

Versión en español aquí.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos isn't the only e-commerce billionaire making news with acquisitions. Jack Ma, chairman of China's e-commerce leader, Alibaba, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a Twitter-like microblogging service and a mapping service.

Both of these giants have been bolting on companies that can help them gain synergies by combining content, social networks, internet retailing, mapping (location-based selling and services), mobile platforms, devices and operating systems. 

Their model and chief competitor is Google, the worldwide leader in online advertising. Google has been getting into all of these businesses. In order to compete globally, the big internet companies -- like Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter and, in China, Alibaba and TenCent -- are seeing the need to develop all parts of online business.