It is a news article on a site for the maritime industry... With that audience, there is probably an expectation to link to the actual report. I wouldn't have that expectation for a mainstream source (CNN, NYT, BBC, etc...), because that's not the audience. gCaptain's audience would have much more interest in reading the report directly (and be experts enough to interpret it).

I'd also expect a tech site like ArsTechnica to link directly to a security CVE. Same concept, different audiences.

If it doesn't link to primary sources, it's propaganda, not journalism. What's sad is that the word "news" now primarily refers to the former.