I read the news, and my reaction kept bouncing from one hand to the other.

On the one hand, it's good that the WashPo's found a safe harbor. Bezos bought it for pocket change, and, if nothing else, can keep it going forever as a hobby.

On the other hand, Jeff Bezos? I can't quite decide whether that's Citizen Kane monstrous or just another chapter of family ownership in the long history of the paper.

And a bit confusingly, Bezos is buying the paper personally; it's not Amazon. So, on the one hand, the paper won't be distilled down to a Kindle app and all the unnecessary bits flensed away (probably; it would be automatic in a merger). But on the other, Amazon knows how to distribute stuff everywhere, and they'd figure out how to put a WashPo on every tablet and smartphone in the world, and overnight deliver a paper copy, for free with a Prime membership, if that floats your boat.

Hmm...