Most of the time reporters misunderstand the research and then oversell it in order to get their story read. The general public is usually left scratching their heads because of this bizarre layer of clueless journalists between them and the scientists. Yes, some scientists are hard to understand, but there's no hope in trying to understand particle physics filtered through the soft spongy grey matter of a liberal arts major! Scientists are quite often educators who are used to speaking to a wide range of audiences. Journalists would do far far better to introduce the subject and then let the scientist explain it in their own words. I have no idea why this is not done more.
As for the FTL neutrinos at CERN... I'd hold on to skepticism for now. The reason they're asking for help finding the glitch instead of proudly proclaiming that they've found tachyons (FTL particles) is because this would be a truly bizarre result that would upend a century of physics that has, to date, proved remarkably accurate in its predictions. If this discovery proved true it would literally force us to rewrite physics from ~1900 onwards. Physicists are not afraid of this. Quite the contrary! It would touch off a bonanza of research! There would be so much work to do that the field would literally explode. It's just a lot more probable that there really is a glitch somewhere and we simply haven't found it yet.
This actually would not be the first time that tachyons were "found". A group in the 70's found statistically significant evidence for them preceding cosmic showers. They were so sure of their results that they published. Then, a year or two later, they discovered that it was just a glitch in their electronics! These guys were small fry compared to CERN, but CERN's accelerator is so complex that glitches could be very hard to find. The scientists at CERN are clearly out of ideas and mean just what they say: They don't believe their results and they want help finding the glitch that's probably causing them. It's extremely irresponsible to report this story as if FTL particles have really been found before CERN has had a chance to consult with outside scientists and other facilities have had a chance to try reproducing their results.