Don't forget their long status as a mockingbird operation. You got downvoted with no comment because there is very little intellectually honest retort to be had, but in their defense, the surveillance state and general degredation of journalism as a whole has affected much more than just WaPo.
The fourth estate is dying and the internet, which should be it's replacement, is under legislative attack because it is a threat to the oligarchy.
For folks who didn't understand the Operation Mockingbird reference, it seems to refer to the CIA in the 50s - 70s hiring the publisher & co-owner of the Washington Post, to run a propaganda operation feeding misinformation to reporters at all the major newspapers in the US:
Well, the internet is also under attack from various actors seeing to distort the narrative for their own means. Tons of planted comments and highly questionable "news" websites".
Traditional media had similar problems, but to a much lesser extend... and the biases/propaganda were much more obvious.
Indeed, the sockpuppetry really hit hard around 2010/2011, and I've yet to see a website handle it very well. Honestly HN is one of the last places I take the actual time to comment on because of it. There are some methods that slashdot uses that I think could also be helpful, but there is no easy fix.
Like you said though, one interesting side-effect is that for the astute reader you can discern what the talking points of the day/week/month are by paying attention to the narrative.
The fourth estate is dying and the internet, which should be it's replacement, is under legislative attack because it is a threat to the oligarchy.