They systematically rewrite headlines to make the news more obscure!

That’s a job you have writing things for the government like writing instructions on forms for the IRS. You’re not supposed to obfuscate news

We are worse for it, but imo there’s a clear through-line from the Shams/Woj tweeting style to this

Some Times staff say that multiple headlines are initially written, then A/B tested, then the one that gets the most clicks is used. If true then the criticism should be directed to either a) the Times for choosing clickbait over truth or b) readers for rage-sharing and rage-clicking on clickbait.

I think they A/B test headlines to see what gets more click-throughs from the homepage.

This is my main irritation with the NYT. They write headlines and stories as second-order news - it’s like they assume you’ve already seen the news on social media or TV and already get all the references. You can’t actually tell what happened from reading them!

Only certain people deserve to know what the fuck happened, I guess.

At least when my editors insist I make a headline more vague it's to chase some popular SEO term, not actually hide the news