It took many hours after the sinking for the real, horrible news to get out. Even then, ships with wireless could relay reports of last contact with Titanic and the rescue of survivors.
Delays in publishing the truth were entirely due to the powers that were.
Even in today’s world of near instantaneous cellular and internet communications and live satellite feeds, early reporting of breaking news stories are often or wrong or incomplete or get some details wrong early on. Some of that is understandable what with the huge amount of information coming in, sometimes from sources that can’t be vetted or confirmed and with the media’s, especially the cable news channels rush to be the first to report. But that is partly due to people’s expectations that whoever breaks the story first must be correct and therefore they get the ratings (or back before TV, the newspaper sales).
So in that respect nothing much has changed since the sinking of the Titanic.
Another complicating factor was that wireless radio communication had not been around all that long, was pretty much unregulated and there were some problems with it. If I am not mistaken even the shorthand used could be confusing as it wasn’t always consistent between operators.
http://earlyradiohistory.us/sec005.htm
“One of the most dramatic sea disasters was the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic on the morning of April 15, 1912. The Titanic -- along with the Carpathia, which picked up the survivors -- was staffed by Marconi Wireless operators, and Marconi shore stations along the Canadian, Newfoundland, and U.S. coasts handled most of the communication as the Carpathia slowly made its way to New York City. In addition, many inland stations tried to get information about the disaster, which in this unregulated era resulted in extensive interference and confusion. Included in all this was the American Marconi equipped facility, MHI, located atop the New York Wanamaker department store, where David Sarnoff was station manager. Sarnoff would later vastly exaggerate his importance, in progressively embellished retellings, including completely false claims that he was first in the United States to hear of the disaster, and that President Taft silenced other stations so that Sarnoff could become the sole link for gathering information. However, the operators at the New York Wanamaker station did spend long hours listening for reports and survivor lists. A collection of extracts about the Titanic comes from the Boston American and recountings by David Sarnoff: The Titanic and the New York Wanamaker Station. Marconi management also sent messages to the operators aboard the Carpathia, telling them to limit what they were publicly reporting, until their accounts could be sold to the newspapers. These activities, plus a complaint that the operators aboard the Carpathia were unresponsive to Navy vessels sent by U.S. President Taft, were covered by the New York Herald: Marconi Company and Titanic Disaster Communication. Amateur radio operators were blamed for much of the chaos experienced immediately after the Titanic sank, but it has never really been clear how many of the problems were actually their fault. In 1922, in The Book of Radio (Titanic extract), Charles William Taussig wrote about the next evening after the Titanic sank, as amateur operators, voluntarily responding to the emergency, scrupulously maintained complete radio silence in the New York City area, in order to avoid interfering with the survivor lists being transmitted by the Salem.”
http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/history_wireless_earlyreg12t.htm