With all respect, you are way over-analyzing this.
A newspaper has one purpose: Make money for the people who own the paper.
The story sold papers. The Pulitzer award sold papers.
Even the retraction sold papers!
That’s all the Grahams, or any “journalist” cares about!
The Post is a remarkable story. Eugene Meyer bought it at a bankruptcy auction in the Depression. He let his fellow traveler son-in-law Phil Graham run it. Graham went insane, committed suicide or was murdered. His widow Katherine Graham ran the business after. It became hugely successful. After her death in 2001, the print business failed.
You are correct that the purpose of the newspaper is to make money for the people who own the newspaper.
There is a movie being released this month, “The Post”, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, glorifying the Washington Post and the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The movie is generating a nauseating avalanche of positive publicity for the newspaper. In response, I wanted to share a negative incident from the paper’s past.