Choc full of protein: This yummy nutrition shake is 20% off on Amazon for a limited time

A chocolate protein shake is 20 percent off on Amazon and somehow that qualifies as news now. We clicked expecting a story and got a coupon with a headline stapled to it. "Who knew an autumn wellness routine could taste this good?" Nobody asked that question. Nobody was losing sleep over whether pumpkin spice season could be improved by a shake with a barcode.

This is the stuff that fills the space where actual reporting used to live. Somewhere along the way, newsrooms figured out that a listicle about a discounted shake drives more clicks than a city council meeting, and here we are. It's not a scandal, it's just a symptom. The same outlets that lecture Americans about media literacy are running affiliate copy dressed up as journalism, and readers can tell the difference even if the editors pretend not to.

None of this is really about the shake. It's fine, probably. Chocolate protein, 20 percent off, good for you if you're into that sort of thing. The point is that this is what "content" has become in a lot of newsrooms: cheap, algorithm-friendly filler standing in for the kind of coverage people actually need. You can tell a lot about a publication by what it thinks is worth your five minutes.

We're not against a good deal. We're against pretending it's news. There's a difference between telling people something useful and telling them something that happens to earn a commission, and readers deserve outlets that still know which one they're doing.