Media pundits have been beside themselves trying to divine what motivated Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos to buy the money-losing Washington Post. (The company's newspaper division reportedly suffered an operating loss of $22.6 million for the first quarter, compared with a loss of $12.8 million in the first quarter of 2011.) The Financial Times, among others, observed that Bezos - who's worth $25 billion -- may have ulterior motives, noting:

Like the giant business trusts that dominated the first Gilded Age, a handful of technology companies, including Amazon, have amassed a degree of wealth and power barely thinkable a generation ago. Just as John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil was once demonized as an octopus extending its tentacles into every facet of the U.S. economy, their influence is set to spread as more aspects of business and personal life are drawn into the digital realm.

 

In Amazon's case, that includes its influence on the retail industry and effect on local employment conditions in the many states where it is setting up warehouses. Mr. Bezos' company is also exerting increasing power over areas of digital media, especially book publishing. And as one of the biggest participants in the cloud computing business, it has an important role in communications and computing infrastructure -- a position that is likely to make it ever more interesting in national security circles.

 

Like most media owners, Mr. Bezos has been quick to deny any intention of using his new status to promote his own interests. "He made it very, very clear that he had no intention of interfering, one with the integrity of the Post and two with the editorial page," says Katharine Weymouth, the paper's publisher.

 

But even if he sticks to that promise, the new proprietor of the venerable Washington Post seems certain to get a more ready hearing when he turns up in the nation's capital.