Why wouldn’t one of them have just broken the news? Frankly I don’t see how it’s worse for them to break the news to 4chan than for the prison to break it to ABC news. He was dead and they announced it. Why does everything have to be “official”?
The idea that regular folks can disseminate true information on their own is very disturbing to a lot of people.
Because institutions, like the Bureau of Prison, Fortune 500 companies or your county school district, are responsible for how information is distilled to the public. That is why almost all are concerned about their image and invest heavily into public relations.
If people leaked information all the time from those institutions, then a certain level trust will be lost and could be detrimental.