I don't post a lot, but this is one area I think is misunderstood. I don't believe this is a question of "access journalism," rather, think of it more like obituary preparedness. A famous actor gets really sick and is on life support. Newspapers are going to prepare an article on his life and death, but they're not going to pull the trigger until the heart stops beating.
Same thing here: The reporter, like the rest of us, knew it might be coming but didn't know when. So he wrote the bones of this story so that he'd have something to publish quickly when it did happen. It's the responsible thing to do, to wait until the firing actually happened before pushing it out at exactly the moment people are looking for info.