You guys are too harsh on the media. They know how their colleagues got treated. They've got to do a factual news item, and they're paid to spend zero time doing so. So they're neither paid nor supported by their editors to do an investigative piece, but they want to share the cult-like hilarity with the world, especially in a week where a pastor wants his fourth private jet, and there's new revelations about nxivm. So, they snark it up and add some details that make Joe 6-pack say "that's messed up".
Ontology 101: "In a way" means "Only by accident."
As in, "In way, that corpse is Socrates." Socrates is dead. In a way it works because absolutely it doesn't.
The Variety piece reiterated CR's pledge of open development and statement that all the money goes to development. It's almost as if they're setting up the next article.