@tal For a blind user, progress bars in "time to read" aren't useful at all, because to focus the bar (if it's accessible) you move the screen reader cursor from the text. Then, if it's with an assertive announcement telling you how much you have read, it interrupts the reading as well and you get distracted.
In this case I prefer [title / date / author / category / reading time].
It hurts rather than helping? Might be. "It's long, I have no time now, I'll save for later" then you forget.