[gress]

Clickbait and sensationalism is a thing in journalism. It is morally wrong because it spreads disinformation and is harmful to both individuals and democracy, but it is legal and profitable, and we haven't done enough to shun it, so it happens.

[webXL]

What's sensationalized?

  The approaches were analyzed as part of a months-long government 
  discussion about how to deal with the growing use of encryption 
  in which no one but the user can see the information.

Using OUR money, they looked into ways to compromise technology that keeps OUR information private. If you claim you're going to be the most transparent administration, the public ought to hold you to that claim. Without leaks and whistleblowers, and reporting like this, we'd be clueless.

[gress]

The headline 'Obama administration quietly rejected ways to bypass smartphone encryption' would be more true and less sensational.

I said nothing about not reporting. It's the distorted headlines laced with innuendo that are damaging.

[webXL]

Your headline would also only tell half of the story, because we don't know whose "ways" the administration rejected. They, the administration, spent time looking into something that they later concluded was wrong. Right?

WaPo's headline was in the past tense and doesn't state anything else, so obviously nothing went beyond exploring. It's not distorted at all.