Ezra Klein On WaPo Sale: ‘I’m Shocked’ But ‘Hopeful’

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Ezra Klein, the editor of the Washington Post’s big traffic driver Wonkblog, laid out his thoughts on the sale of the paper to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos Monday, saying he is “shocked” but “hopeful.”

Klein wrote in a post that one of the drawbacks of the sale is all the potential conflicts of interest that could arise from the paper’s owner running one of the largest and most influential companies in the country.

“Amazon’s political interests extend across everything from state sales taxes to the minimum wage to trade with China,” Klein said. “It’s doubtful that Bezos intends to aggressively use The Post to advance Amazon’s legislative goals. But over time, who knows? The Post has had to navigate similar tensions in recent years with our Kaplan division, but this will be of a new scale.”

He also wrote that the Post’s local coverage could suffer, since Bezos resides in Washington state and likely doesn’t have as much vested interest in local coverage as the Post’s current longtime owners, the Graham family.

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