The Dramatic Devaluation of American Newspapers

The American newspaper industry has recently been shaken by the sale of two of its oldest and most renowned newspapers. Just a week before Jeff Bezos' shock acquisition of The Washington Post, The New York Times Company had announced the sale of The Boston Globe in a less surprising deal.

Perhaps the most worrying thing about those acqusitions was the fact that they revealed how lowly newspapers are valued these days: The New York Times Co. had paid $1.1 billion for The Boston Globe in 1993 and now, 20 years later, got rid of it for a mere $70 million. The Washington Post, which had last been sold in 1933 when it wasn't nearly the newspaper it is today, changed owners for $250 million, which is less than what the NYT Co. had paid for the low-profile weekly Worcester Telegram & Gazette in 1999.

There have been other deals in the past few years as well, which all show the same dramatic devaluation of newspapers in the United States.