Drudge's Non-Link

I've always liked the The Drudge Report, not for Drudge's unsourced "exclusives" but for the internet-savvy links it provides to real stories.
But one Item I clicked on surprised me.

The link was "Comedy Central Crushed by Star's Disappearance..."

But instead of getting a direct link to a story, I got a Google news search of these words:

Dave Chappelle called his bosses at the Viacom-owned cable network Comedy Central with some distressing news

The only search result was this LA Times story.

Did Drudge or an underling mess up? Or is there some reason he won't link directly to the story?