The Washington Post closes sale to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos formally took over as the owner of The Washington Post, officially ending 80 years of local control of the newspaper by the Graham family.

Bezos’s $250 million purchase was completed as expected with the signing of sale documents. The signing transfers the newspaper and other assets from The Washington Post to Nash Holdings, Bezos’s private investment company. Bezos, who founded the online shopping company in 1994 and became a billionaire in the process, has vowed to continue the newspaper’s long history of independent journalism. His technical and marketing savvy, long-term outlook and lack of an apparent ideological agenda made him an attractive steward for the paper, Post chief executive Donald E. Graham said in August, when an agreement in principle was first disclosed. At the same time, Bezos, 49, has the deep pockets to sustain an enterprise that has been buffeted for years by declining readership and advertising, especially in the printed Post.