‘You can’t shrink your way to profitability’: Jeff Bezos talks about the future of newspapers

Jeff Bezos has three pieces of advice for journalists: Be riveting, be right and ask people to pay.

The Washington Post owner and Amazon founder dispensed this simple guidance Wednesday at a conference about the future of print news in Turin, Italy. The conference coincides with the 150th birthday of La Stampa, one of Italy’s major newspapers, which is based in Turin.

Other notable U.S. media executives on the panel included HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson and New York Times Company CEO Mark Thompson.

Below are a few tweets from and about the conference. Follow along using #FutureofNewspapers.

The books editor at la stampa – paper lives ! #futureofnewspapers pic.twitter.com/WKqwTenmNB — Lionel Barber (@lionelbarber) June 21, 2017

"You can't shrink your way to profitability." @JeffBezos speaking at the Future of Newspapers conference. — Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) June 21, 2017

"Eventually reading a print paper will be like owning a horse." pic.twitter.com/NqzVJMO1wb — Jessica Lessin (@Jessicalessin) June 21, 2017

Jeff Bezos and John Helkann talking about #futureofnewspapers in Torino today. Amazing talk for 150th of @LaStampa ! pic.twitter.com/wbN4SXAppf — Davide Dattoli (@davidedattoli) June 21, 2017

Bezos advice to newspaper biz: "Be riveting, be right and ask people to pay." — Rob Cox (@rob1cox) June 21, 2017

#MarkThompson:

"We have ~6 months to find out whether digital platforms who claim to want to help us really mean it" #FutureOfNewspapers pic.twitter.com/3Zb66pQEk8 — Anna Masera (@annamasera) June 21, 2017