I believe the reason DC went to the NYTimes (?) with the spoiler is that since the books ship ahead of release date, the information about what exactly happens in the comics would have been spoiled anyways, so they wanted to be in control of the spoiling is all.
Here is the video I seen the information from
Yeah it REALLY fucked over retailers who did store exclusive variants for their shops. Lots of retailers had customers email or call to cancel their pre orders which is a total dick move as well. These retailers spent 10-20k to have a store exclusive variant for an issue with the conclusion to a storyline that they pumped up for over a year. In my opinion a slap in the face and DC saw it too afterwards. They made the issue fully returnable to retailers if they were stuck with an over shipment.
Thank you!