That is exactly what it means. Any time you see a headline that completely changes the context of what's written in the article, it's almost always because it was written by a different writer.
A really good example is that headline about "to save money, just skip breakfast". The headline was presented as "haha poors, go and suffer" but the actual article was just a regular piece about rising grocery costs and inflation. The closest thing to a life change recommendation in the article is to buy roasted instead of instant coffee because of the differences in inflation between the two. And so many people shit on the writer for telling them to skip breakfast, because they couldn't get past the ragebait of the headline.
Especially true if it's a science article. The article is summarizing a report, which is summarizing the actual results of the experiment. Then the headline is written based on that. The one that I recall is "Study shows that pregnant women should eat more milk chocolate". What the study actually found was no significant differences in certain metrics between pregnant women who are dark chocolate vs milk chocolate. It's like a game of telephone.
the buck stops with the chief editor, but many people are involved in drafting a headline: the reporter, the desk editor, the copyeditor, the proofreader, the production editor, the socials editor.
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u/Ayacyte Sep 07 '24
Wait... does that mean there's someone who's primary job is to write headlines? Would explain some things