I'm sure that would go down well, I mean what better way to make enemies at your university than by publishing critical reviews of your colleagues work in a public press release. A better idea would be to have the anonymous peer reviews published as an addendum to each paper, that would be fun. Also highlight whether or not the work was published in a 'private club' journal with lax standards or not. Maybe interview the lab techs as anonymous sources to see what kind of standards the lab really operates with? Do some investigative journalism? Cue furious PIs demanding the entire media relations department be fired...
University media relations departments are just not going to to point out flaws in the work of their own PI-led research groups, they're in the business of fluffing their reputations, because that means they might get more students, more grants, more positive media coverage, etc. It's a business these days, isn't it? Corporate PR professionals are running that show more often than not.
I agree with essentially everything you say, although I would hope we could figure out a way to structure our research organizations to prevent that sort of bias but having a dedicated scientific reporting organization of some kind that does serious due diligence I think could definitely work
University media relations departments are just not going to to point out flaws in the work of their own PI-led research groups, they're in the business of fluffing their reputations, because that means they might get more students, more grants, more positive media coverage, etc. It's a business these days, isn't it? Corporate PR professionals are running that show more often than not.