You can claim that giving free games away is a EGS strategy to draw users but this has nothing to do with gaming sites reporting on games that are being made free for a limited amount of time. I can't think of a major site that doesn't mention what that new free game is up on EGS and that's because it is in the interest of their readers to know.
I checked few on last free games on Steam and PC gamer hadn't reported on those. (had reported on only two)
(They do seem reporting on giveaways of Steam keys though, but not all of direct from steam giveaways).
I really doubt Nintendo is gonna release games on PC ;)