People usually do this knowing full well that there are counterexamples, yet the general case warrants the strong oversimplification.

With journalism we've seen the profession decline in expertise and standards over the past decades. Mostly because too many publications hire anyone who is willing to generate articles that generate clicks.

True. You could also make the argument that journalism has declined because people will click on anything.

The industry has declined not because of hiring policies, but because we in the tech industry blew it up and because capitalism and journalism are not totally compatible anyhow.

I am also not fond of click-driven headlines and articles. But this is not a new problem; when newspapers were mainly purchased individually, exciting headlines were used to drive sales. Now that companies get paid by the view, guess what! Organizations that prioritize revenue-generating views will survive.

If we don't like that, yelling at them won't help. And blaming random things like hiring policies especially won't help. We need to figure out how to get sufficient money into journalism in ways that rewards the kind of journalism we want. Personally, between Patreon and subscriptions, I spend a couple grand a year on that. What are you doing to solve the problem?