[mickronome]

It could be the case that the click driving articles themselves is an effect of Facebook, but also Google and many others, serving as implicit or explicit filters favouring the style, because their click hungry ad selling algoritms feeds itself through ads on the article pages.

It's quite likely that they believe they have to write that way today, or shutter the doors.

They could still care more about good journalism, while mostly having to write in a style that looks like if they don't.

Only way to know for sure is to look at their economy, and how much is driven by per click ads, and how much is subscriptions/other sales.