Perhaps my faith in journalism these days is lower than yours, but this seems to me the unsurprising result of a PR department milking a mediocre project for what it's worth.But looking at early news coverage, it is clear journalists were not asking pointed questions about how the project was being financed or its capabilities when it comes to curing cancer.
There aren't many news outlets I would trust to report accurately about anything to do with machine learning, much less being able to marry that knowledge with an understanding of medical science pertaining to cancer. But let's hope that this doesn't put a damper on future efforts. Like mk said, publishing results isn't trivial. Sometimes it turns out to be the hardest part of a study. Not that you don't know this, veen, just typing it out for posterity :).