I wish the stories that appeared on HN about this kind of thing leaned toward the outcomes of the trial rather than the fact that a trial is starting. It feels like clickbait and fuel for conjecture otherwise.
An estimated 2% of federal criminal defendants get tried [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-f...]
The figure appear to be similar for civil cases [https://judicature.duke.edu/articles/going-going-but-not-qui...]
You can't wait until the outcome is decided to report on something because then you wouldn't report on it until the trial was over and no one would hear about it for years.
People take advantage of this all the time by just stalling investigations or trials to avoid press coverage. The press forgets about it.
That's significantly more information in a complaint than a settlement, which typically happens when both parties tell the judge to dismiss the claim. There's often no public announcement, so at best the press can say we believe there's been a settlement but we do not know what the terms were. There's literally nothing to report other than the case is no longer active.
Settlements are done in part to limit the disclosure of information that might come to light during a public trial. So unless there's a post-settlement leak (legally risky), a public announcement (with details limited by the NDA) by one of the law firms involved, or a public consent decree (when the government is litigating), there's not a lot to be learned other than someone blinked.
If yes, then I’m quite amazed that we can disappear public knowledge so thoroughly in this century. If not, we then have the initial information PLUS the information of the outcome. In the case of settlement, it’s still strictly more information. Perhaps not a lot more, but definitely still more.