The Washington Post Company announced on Monday, August 5, that it was selling its newspaper business to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million. Bezos says he understands "the critical role the Post plays in Washington, D.C., and our nation." Take a look at a brief history of a newspaper that inspired a generation of journalists.
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History of the Washington Post —
The Washington Post Company will hold onto the Post's headquarters in downtown Washington. Although it was not included in the deal, the building has been for sale since February.
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History of the Washington Post —
Art critic Philip Kennicott, left, listens to executive editor Martin Baron in the Washington Post newsroom after Kennicott was announced as a Pulizter Prize winner on April 15, 2013. Over the years the paper has earnerd dozens of Pulitzers, journalism's most prestigious award.
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Marcus Brauchli announces he will resign as executive editor to take a new position within the company on November 13, 2012. He became vice president of the Post Company and was replaced by Martin Baron, former editor of the Boston Globe.
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The Washington Post Company sells struggling Newsweek magazine in August 2010 to audio industry pioneer Sidney Harman for $1 and an agreement to take on its financial liabilities. For most of its 80-year history, Newsweek was owned by the Post. At the end of 2012, the magazine abandoned its print version.
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People take copies of the Post's special election edition on November 5, 2008, outside the newspaper's offices in Washington. The issue highlighted Barack Obama's historic presidential victory.
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Executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., gets a hug from publisher Katharine Weymouth on June 23, 2008, after he announced that he will give up his title. At right, Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Post, holds the microphone. Established in 1877, the Post has been run by the heirs of Eugene Meyer since 1933. Graham is Meyer's grandson and Weymouth's uncle.
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Web producer Dan Jung edits video in the Washington Post newsroom on June 26, 2004. The newspaper launched washingtonpost.com in 1996.
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The Post agrees to publish the unedited 35,000-word manifesto of the Unabomber, Theodore J. Kaczynski, on September 19, 1995. It was done at the request of Attorney General Janet Reno and the FBI in hopes of ending the 17-year letter bomb campaign.
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Katharine Graham, left, who led the Post for more than two decades, poses with her daughter, journalist and socialite Lally Weymouth, and Barry Diller, chairman of 20th Century Fox, at a party in 1988.
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Publisher Donald Graham poses for a portrait in 1983. After filling various editorial, production and executive roles, he succeeded his mother, Katharine Graham, as publisher in 1979. He was later named chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company.
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New York Mayor Ed Koch reads the Washington Post in his office during the New York City newspaper strike in 1978.
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Katharine Graham addresses newsroom employees shortly after the beginning of the pressman's strike against the Post in October 1975.
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Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein, left, and Bob Woodward broke stories about the Nixon administration's cover-up after the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The coverage earned the Post a Pulitzer Prize and sparked a congressional investigation that eventually led to President Nixon's resignation in 1974.
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Executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham look over reports of the 1971 Supreme Court decision that permitted the paper to publish stories based on the Pentagon Papers. The top-secret documents revealed that senior American leaders, including three presidents, knew the Vietnam War was an unwinnable, tragic quagmire. They also showed that the government had lied to Congress and the public about the progress of the war.
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Owner Eugene Meyer, right, and publisher Philip Graham look over the first edition of the paper after the Washington Post and Times-Herald merger in 1954. Graham committed suicide in 1963, leaving his wife, Katharine, in charge of the company.
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Men work on typesetting the newspaper in the composing room of the Washington Post-Times Herald in 1954.
