Will ‘The New York Times’ Be Next To Be Sold?

After that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is buying The Washington Post for $250 million — a deal that came for $70 million to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry — a question naturally occurs:

Who’s next?

On Tuesday, at least two long-time media watchers reached the same conclusion:

“After the Post’s sale, attention now turns inevitably to The New York Times,” . “Like the Post, the Times has long been family owned, by the Sulzbergers. Its commitment to quality journalism is unmatched. And it did the entire newspaper business a serious favor when it started to charge for digital content in 2011.

“But it is subject to the same maelstrom that forced the sale of the Post: Witness the fact that at one point it had to turn to a controversial Mexican billionaire for a bailout. There are periodic flurries of speculation about the sale of the Times, perhaps to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who already has his own media empire. (A company spokesman waved off an attempt to talk to Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. about the Post sale and the future of his own newspaper.)”

Reuters’ Jack Shafer, who had put his money on Bloomberg as the most likely person to buy the Post, that the New York City mayor has “toyed in semi-public with the idea of buying either the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Financial Times.”

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