Perhaps you’ve heard the news. The Washington Post was sold to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos yesterday for $250 million. The deal includes the Express commuter newspaper, The Gazette Newspapers, Southern Maryland Newspapers, Fairfax County Times, El Tiempo Latino and Greater Washington Publishing. Slate.com and Foreign Policy, along with some other holdings by The Washington Post Company, are not part of the deal.Of note is the fact that Amazon is not involved in the deal at all; rather Bezos bought the paper as an individual (his net worth is estimated to be around $25 billion).Individual buyers have been rare for newspapers in recent decades, but that may be changing as just this past weekend, The Boston Globe was sold to Red Sox owner John Henry for $70 million. That deal — a fraction of the $1.1 billion The New York Times Company paid for The Globe in 1993 — includes Boston.com, BostonGlobe.com, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspaper and its website, as well as the Globe’s direct mail business and a 49 percent interest in the Metro Boston commuter newspaper. (Disclosure: I worked for Metro Boston from 2001-2002.)While there’s nothing to say an individual investor couldn’t re-vitalize a paper, the differences between Bezos and Henry are stark. Bezos has an entrepreneurial background, founding Amazon with a $300,000 loan from his parents, and has historically frustrated investors by taking a longer-term (instead of quarterly) approach to growth. That’s a good thing for newspapers and news sites, which often need to put their mission over dollars in order to investigate stories in the public interest and be a publication of note.Henry, on the other hand, has no real entrepreneurial experience. (Both Bezos and Henry made their initial fortunes in investing, but whereas Bezos used his knowledge of technology and computer science, Henry traded commodities based on his knowledge of the agriculture business.) However, the Red Sox did win a World Series two years after Henry bought the team and after an 86-year drought — largely attributed to a data-driven approach to the game.Both The Post and The Globe tap into local sensibilities and hometown pride to sell papers — but it’s yet to be seen if that sort of fanaticism can be turned into digital dollars, which is what both will need to generate in order to stay viable. (Here’s my analysis of The Post’s new paywall and The Globe’s model.) It’s possible Bezos plans on running The Post as a philanthropic/entrepreneurial business (perhaps a social enterprise at last for the news industry?), but I’m willing to bet that Henry sticks to a more traditional model. For that reason, my money’s on Bezos and The Post.(Jeff, if you’re reading this, call me — I’ve got tons of great ideas for you!)