Why would you believe that? Copy editors don't spend a lot of time on each headline. Publication style guides for headlines aren't particularly ideological. Copy editors aren't like reporters, who narrowly focus on a single subject - whoever wrote this headline probably writes hundreds of headlines for articles across a vast array of subjects. To me, having worked at a newspaper (not the NYT of course) and having seen the way headlines get drafted, this is a case where the burden of proof is on you to show that whoever titled this piece wanted to imbue it with an anti-private-messaging agenda, rather than rattling off something that they thought was catchy using a few buzzwords that would draw the reader in.
> These are two people working together on a single published piece.
Copy editors (who write headlines at large news orgs) don't work with reporters on the content of the piece, only the style and grammar.
Again, that doesn't reflect my experience working at a newspaper, where many other factors play a much stronger role in headline selection. Perhaps you're right and I don't see that deep-seated bias that's informing headline selections. Happy to continue this discussion elsewhere (should be easy to find my contact details based on my username) if that's something you're interested in.
> These are two people working together on a single published piece.
Copy editors (who write headlines at large news orgs) don't work with reporters on the content of the piece, only the style and grammar.