The core problem is that the article is shitty and has a linkbait title. The headline causes discussion to naturally go to the idea that they're going to "shut down" the service rather than transition the service and its existing customers into the iTunes umbrella, which is certainly not what people think of when they hear the phrase "shutting down". It's of course a matter of semantics, but if an article claimed they were shutting down Beats headphones and then in one of the final paragraphs mentions "oh and maybe that really just means they're rebranding them with Apple logos", it'd similarly lead to bad discussion.

Edit: Also, see the direct refutation from Apple. So now we've got one actual person on the record, a spokesperson from the company, versus five unnamed sources in a garbage article with glaring errors from a known-questionable source.