That's one hell of a conclusion to jump to. We've all got fucking eyes and can see the header, bozo.
If it was just some person's opinion, it would be posted as a Facebook screed, on a personal blog, Medium post, or Substack post. You get the picture. There's an infinite amount of places online to personally toss your own opinion up for the world to see.
While the opinion piece label is a very important disclaimer-- The New York Times reviewed, vetted, and made an active choice to publish this drivel and attach their name and reputation to it. Pretending that doesn't mean anything is a mistake.
It's their job to report what people are thinking and saying. That doesn't mean they endorse the opinion. Clearly, you also don't understand what an opinion section is.
A short while back I saw a comment on Lemmy mention something along the lines of how opinion pieces are the best/only place that they go for their info... And it had a ton of upvotes.