> Wouldn’t you say that the WaPo brand owns its prestige much to the journalists, editors and other professionals who build the newspaper on a day by day basis?

Yeah. But statistically some of them are going to vote Trump so I don't think that is much of an argument why the WaPo endorsement decision needs to be made by any specific committee in the WaPo.

There are arguments for and against both candidates - the WaPo as an institution might be good at presenting both but it isn't competent to make the decision on which president is a better choice. That includes Bezos for what it is worth. If we're talking shoulds, in theory they shouldn't be endorsing anyone.

> No one buys the Post out of a wish to read Bezos’ personal views or those of random strangers.

Sounds to me like that is exactly why people buy newspapers. The drive is to find out what a community at large thinks about things and to figure out how a random sample of a community is interpreting events. If I want to learn what an expert opinion is on a topic I would not be turning to the WaPo to try and figure it out.

Although with the advent of the internet we've discovered that professional corporate journalists do a terrible job of capturing that so I expect they're being replaced by podcasters with more independence. Owner's influence has never stopped at nixing one decision.