That's what I mean by guardrails. Just saying that the clicks incentive is strong and pervasive, even for "important" stories like the Trump trial. There are no guardrails about being disparaging toward him, and even minutiae generate entire stories presumably because of the clicks.
Discussion
Yes. But even those trials are trivial things — mostly theater for deranged partisans.
It’s like there are two divisions: one entertainment (clicks) and another journalism (zero interest in clicks.) In fact, they actively publish stories to deflect attention and reduce clicks (damage control/limited hangout pieces.)