Why are research-reporting headlines always like this?

CNN decided to report on a study that had the unremarkable finding that people who had more “deep conversations” were happier. They also noticed that happier people–who had more “deep conversations”–had less “small talk” conversations. So instead of reporting it with a headline that related to the findings, like “Unhappy? Maybe you should have more deep conversations” CNN reported it with the headline “Unhappy? Maybe it’s too much small talk.” Which doesn’t seem sexist until you look at the picture they associate with it, which shows a man working at a computer and a woman idling, both of them on a bed, which suggests intimate partners. This makes even less sense when you realize that the basic conclusion of the research is that happiness comes from intimate conversations and interactions–which suggests BOTH the people in the picture should be unhappy, because they’re not talking, not just that forlorn-looking woman in the forground. (You can look at the article here.)
Essentially, this headline and picture pander to the stereotype that women want to waste their male partners’ time with misery-creating small talk, even though that stereotype has NOTHING to do with the real conclusion of the research–which is “Happy people tended to have twice as many substantive conversations, and spent 25 percent less time alone, than the unhappiest participants.”
That pandering makes it unsurprising that this article received the following nasty comment:
“now i have some proof for the wife…..
i despise small talk and it gets me almost angry when people try to get me involved in their b.s. crap small talk about nothing that means nothing, can solve nothing, produce nothing or create nothing!”
Same thing happened, and was reported here, with the research on the degradation of the Y chromosome, even though it was totally different research and a different media outlet.
Massive fail, media.