No solace. So it was Bob the editor who wrote the headline and not Steve the author? I guess that matters a lot to Steve, but to me, the reader, this is a meaningless, irrelevant distinction. Steve cares a lot about absolving Steve, I guess, but, like, this couldn't possibly matter any less to literally anybody else.

While I completely understand what the article is saying ... this is nothing short of a complete failure of journalistic integrity. Just like there's a "wall" between the news floor and the advertising department, it should be accepted practice for the author of a piece to have a hand in and approval of titles for their piece.

An editor writing a clickbaity headline is incentivized in the same way as the ad/business department to craft that title in a way to maximize engagement.