I guess I mentally put whatever part of NASA published this in the same category as university PR departments. You almost certainly know more about how NASA works than I do.
Your analogy is not wrong, but I think university PR departments ought to be held to a higher standard too. If a university PR department issued a press release that denied anthropogenic climate change or evolution there would be an uproar. Why should it suddenly be OK to play fast-and-loose with the truth just because the topic is physics rather than biology or climate science?
I had to think a bit before responding, but university PR departments regularly report questionable findings. The two you picked are obviously highly politicized topics, so it's obvious why that would cause an uproar.
I agree that they ought to be held to a higher standard, but I think that the motivation of scientists for not doing so is more out of apathy, and less out of a desire to seem more mysterious.
