I just loaded up a nytimes[1] article too - and only weighed in at 1.0MB. For a 1000 word article. Subsequent reloads dropped it to ~1000KB. I don't think that's too bad, considering there are images in there as well.

Now of course, I'm running an ad blocker. I assume the remaining MB that you noticed had come from advertising sources. In which case, bloat isn't the issue, ads are.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/facebook-poli...