I checked the logs and you're right. The URL was originally https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/28/google-reportedly-in-talks.... That article is simply pointing to the Reuters source, so a moderator changed it in accordance with the site guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter."

Normally when we do that we explain so in the thread, like this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... But this one happened overnight when no one who is public as a moderator was awake. That's a flaw in the current moderation system.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html