The news company is in the biz of making money for themselves not for facebook. People not clicking the links and reading the articles weren't generating income for them (nor were they getting informed in any meaningful way) however they were enriching another platform (facebook).
So now the users aren't being given links, which they weren't really clicking to begin with, so the news company isn't losing any significant money but at least their work (articles) aren't being used to enrich facebook.
Thier strategy is that the users will eventually want news from somewhere and either they will go to the source, or they will grow dissatisfied with facebook since they don't show news anymore and facebook may pay for the content to keep their own users happy.
it's a minimal risk proposition for the media companies.