I think https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/international-students... is plain lying of the most common kind the NYTimes does: selective citing of statistics so you can claim that everything you said is true but you create an impression at odds with reality.
See http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/03/one... for more details.
You are of course correct that omitting details to fit the narrative is what's going on here. This particular case is more egregious that most in that "details" is "two out of the three equally important numbers in the study's results".
Personaly I don't know if they were lying(I was speaking of what other people believe), as I don't read the NYT that often (I am not a US citicien) and not at those times. But what I know from german newspapers, I think it is very possible. At least lying in the sense of bending and twisting words, leaving out context to intentional misslead the reader of what actually happened. This I can witness every day
Or in the context of Irak, maybe they did not formally lie, but did know that the persons they quoted did. Which would count as the same for me.
I would encourage you to read the actual papers and the later analysis to come to your own conclusion. The OPEDs leading up to the war are particuarly interesting. If you have a NYTimes membership (I'm sure they have some form of free trial) you can access the "timesmachine" which is great UI they built to navigate archived papers back to the 1800s
There is a lot of rhetoric flying around on both sides today. As in most conflicts I find the reality to be much more nuanced and less clear cut. The temptation to omit details to fit the narrative is in my opinion the only thing you can count on from all media sources.