Billionaires have had a pretty good pandemic. There are more of them than there were a year ago, even as the crisis has exacerbated inequality. But scrutiny has followed these ballooning fortunes. Policymakers are debating new taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. Even their philanthropy has come under increasing criticism as an exercise of power as much as generosity.One arena in which the billionaires can still win plaudits as civic-minded saviors is buying the metropolitan daily newspaper.The local business leader might not have seemed like such a salvation a quarter century ago, before Craigslist, Google and Facebook began …
