This is the media controlling science. Scientists need funding and a bit of positive press goes a long way; it seems like every week on the mainstream media we see another cure for cancer just 5-10 years away.
One thing you can do if you arent a scientist is keep a skeptical but open mind. Also provide your resources to help science so funding is less of an issue, contribute a little brain time to Zooniverse, and/or some of your computer time to BOINC. You can even earn Gridcoin for your effort.
We (scientists) are trying to increase our personal outreach efforts to help with this. When you have more people actually explaining the work to regular people, the clickbait headlines in the news about these things have less of an effect. Since people already understand the work some.