Right, and that is accurate. Unless you interpret the statement literally, as meaning that St. Nicholas was literally Santa Claus, which'd be a weird interpretation, because the statement also includes the mention of St. Nicholas, so clearly that's not the same thing as Santa Claus. Again, nobody's saying what you're interpreting.
The meaning of the statement is not that Santa Claus is literally the same guy as the saint, in every respect, but that Santa Claus' progenitor, 'the original', was St. Nicholas, who started the tradition of yuletide gift-giving.
Now, if he'd said 'the fact remains that the original Santa Claus died in southern Turkey on his last trip from the North Pole', then... yes, yes, that'd be wrong. The actual article as linked in the OP is just being funny in the opening.