Why it happened is still baffling, at least for anyone not inside the head of one of the world’s richest men. Marty Baron, the Post’s former editor, highlighted the owner’s “sickening” efforts to curry favour with Donald Trump in a “case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction”. Slate magazine, owned by the Graham family (previous owners of the Post), accused Bezos of “accelerating the [Post’s] decline on purpose” because of “external economic interests” such as Amazon and Blue Origin, his space business. Perhaps he agreed to savage cuts because it showed he really was the boss, or just because he could. In any case, his ownership of the Washington Post is yet more proof, if needed, that owning a newspaper is not about money; it’s about power and influence. In other words, it’s about politics.