WaPo and NYT are national newspapers founded in the 1800's who compete with the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, the LA Times, Reuters, etc.
HuffPo and Slate are news websites launched in the 90's or 2000's that are competing with sites like Breitbart, Salon, the Daily Beast, etc.
I agree that we should call out this kind of article, but I don't like spreading the conception that click-bait based news websites are equally as reliable as more trustworthy sources.