In the view page in MVC what is the preferred way of handling empty variables

When using the MVC design pattern, I usually try to keep the files as simple as possible.

So in my view, I try not to have a lot of code like this:

if page title exists

    display page title

else 

    display 'default page title'

end if

      

        
        
        
      

    

Instead, in my controller, I could use code like this:

if no page title is specified

    page title = 'default page title'

end if

load the view (pass page title as a parameter)

      

        
        
        
      

    

Is this the best way to solve this problem?