Because this was the first time in the history of linux this happened (a non-LTS release that wasn't by Linus himself) and Linus also wanted to take this as an

Because this was the first time in the history of linux this happened (a non-LTS release that wasn't by Linus himself) and Linus also wanted to take this as an opportunity to apologize for his behavior. Linux is a huge and very important project, so I'm not surprised this deal was a big deal and had a lot of coverage in HN or reddit.