I think of journalism like any other job where there's an expectation to produce results, where the main objective here is to write an article that lots of people read. It's a topic that catches a lot of people's attention, so in a sense they've succeeded by getting a lot of people to read and talk about it.
It’s like saying chirurgeon job is like any other job, and the most people operated in a minimum amount of time is all that matter to optimize. But even in the most cynical Machiavelli™ hospital, reputation and actual operational results have to be taken into account if the institution want to continue to be frequented.