I've been a journalist for over a decade, and I've seen the relentless push for clickbait headlines that prioritize outrage over accuracy. My own newsroom tracks 'engagement minutes' as if time spent on a story equals truth. But I wonder if the public actually wants nuance—or if they've been trained to skim and move on. I've had pieces that took weeks to research get a fraction of the traffic of a hastily written hot take. So is it fair to blame the media for dumbing down the news when we're just giving people what they click? I'm leaning NO, the demand is manufactured by algorithms, but I'm open to being wrong.