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Jeff Bezos,Amazon boss has agreed to purchase the Washington Post newspaper for $250m (£163m).
The Post has been a family business for over 80years, owned by the Graham family.
Donald Graham, Post chief executive said "Years of familiar newspaper-industry challenges made us wonder if there might be another owner who would be better for the Post,"
"Jeff Bezos' proven technology and business genius, his long-term approach and his personal decency make him a uniquely good new owner for the Post."
The sale is expected to be completed in the next 60 days.The sale took many by surprise.
The Post has been "declining in circulation especially among young readers," Horizon Media analyst Brad Adgate told the BBC.
Nonetheless, he added: "I always thought this would be a newspaper that would be able to withstand the digital tide because of the name and the prestige. It is, next to the New York Times, the most prestigious paper in the country."
In an open letter posted on the Washington Post's website, Bezos said he would not be leading the paper on a day-to-day basis and sought to reassure nervous employees, but saying he would not seek to change "the values" of the paper.
However, he added: "There will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years.The internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs."
