It's the editorial board that has the conflict of interest--between running a newspaper, and using the newspaper as a vehicle to advance their personal political ideologies. I grew up in the D.C. area reading WaPo. It went from being a milquetoast paper to being a vehicle for political radicals. And that's been a disaster for the business. The paper was on pace to lose $100 million last year, and has lost 500,000 subscribers since 2020: https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-lose-100-milli....

WaPo's business is catering to D.C. professionals. The nature of the country's electoral politics is that roughly half of those are going to be batting for each side. It's a good business decision not to seem like you're rooting for one side or the other.