Also amusing to me was that Reuters, Politico, and CNBC all scored better than the NYT for the clickbait rating, despite NYT being used as the training data. They wrote headlines more like them than they did.

I think it is likely a (perverse) indication that the NYT is more successfully adapting and competing in the news market. But headlines have always been written with the primary intention of grabbing attention, modern web clickbait style headlines might be another evolution of that approach.

I've thought that Times article headlines have been more clickbaity over time. Some articles, especially if they aren't related to current events, are becoming more casual in their voice as well.

If they can maintain quality journalism by only sacrificing headline quality, that is probably a good and necessary tradeoff to make.

NYT is struggling to survive, made more difficult by not wanting to succumb completely to the evolutionary advancements that have made clickbait successful.