The headline, and the story itself, is what we call a narrative hook. Their purpose is not really to inform the moral of the story, although they should not be

The headline, and the story itself, is what we call a narrative hook. Their purpose is not really to inform the moral of the story, although they should not be totally unrelated, but to grab your attention and give you some kind of emotional attachment to the "lesson" and cause you to pay attention; and keep reading. Whether the story is true or not, and whether the details actually warrant the conclusions are largely irrelevant to their actual purpose within the piece. The actual message of the piece can be boiled down to "Pick your business partners like you pick your wife/husband/significant whatever." The anecdote _does_ have a resonance with the message, so works quite well in that regard. Also note the "resolution" paragraph at the end that wraps up the narrative and gives you that warm, all's right with the world, happy ending buzz. And it did cause you to read a bunch more verbiage that you might have otherwise. A little hint of sex and betrayal can really spice up an otherwise trite and shallow piece (sometimes you need to file some copy even when the muse isn't stopping by today...)