They are not supposed to be impartial. They are supposed to cover local news. I agree it's a huge stretch to make a Hawkeye congratulating Taurasi on the record a local story, but it's standard practice in journalism to find the local angle on a national story. It's lame, but it's not journalistic malpractice. We need everyone in society to take media literacy and journalism courses. The amount of misunderstanding is frustrating. Everyone thinks they're a professional journalist.
Anyways, yeah, it was a lame headline that should've been a pass from the editors. But it was a social media post, not an actual story.