> University press releases aren’t exactly the most unbiased sources of scientific information.

Can you blame them? They're always looking for funding for their research, and the current climate is not the best.

I don't blame them for trying to get funding - but I do blame them for over hyping scientific breakthroughs which leads to headlines where a correlation being noticed is reported as a causation has been discovered and people should stop doing whatever immediately (or start eating some new fad diet)

The system is well broken, and the outcome of the over hype is the MAHA movement - people who have not understood the reporting really means "We have found an interesting new avenue of research" not what they hear which is "We've cured disease" which inevitably then leads to "Science is false, they told me they could cure disease, but it didn't, eat more Vitamin C instead"

I blame them. The bad headlines didn't star this year, so it's not about the current climate.

In the university we don't allow the students to cheat. We don't allow researchers to make creative titles of research papers (in spite I've seen a few) or just lie inside the papers (in spite I've seen a few). So I think the university press office has a responsibility to give a simplified but accurate report.

Whom are they lying to? Investors take a look at the data or get professional advice. Grant founding committees read the papers (or at least they shoud) and in particular care more about the grant proposal than the press release. So a bad tite only confuse the layman, that after a few clickbait titles that disappear start to doubt that a university professor is more reliable than the guy from Ancient Aliens.