Fair question, Andrew. I'm being subjective, certainly. However, I used to work in advertising and PR, so I pay close attention to headlines. Part of it is trends in "newspaper" headlines that started years ago in women's magazines, like saying "what to but now" and in advertising like the two-sentence structure like "he tried to do it, but it didn't go well." The NYT didn't used to do that as much say ten years ago.

Also, the NYT focuses much more on shiny objects like what MTG and other loudmouth politicians said yesterday.

The journalists write a good story, and the editors try to sell it with the headline. I done it myself countless times. NYT's headlines used to "tell" us why we would want to read the article by referencing the subject, what's new about it, and its significance, like "breakthrough in Mideast talks." Now the NYT just tries to push our buttons with "new Trump horror."

You can see this by reading several paragraphs, then re-reading the headline to see how disconnected from the story it is.