SLF here. Easy to be critical with hindsight but in an absolutely perfect world in order to avoid pax bleating to the press afterwards, would it not have been possible for one of the flightcrew to find 30 seconds to say something like:
"Afternoon ladies and gents, unfortunately our right engine has suffered what's known as a compresser surge. It sounds very alarming but there's nothing to worry about - the engine is *not* on fire and the aircraft is quite capable of flying on the other engine alone. We are however going to have to return to LAX where we'll land in about 15 [?] minutes. The cabin crew are going to repeat the safety briefing which please pay close attention to. Thank you."
Or is there not even time for that amongst the v heavy workload of turning a very heavy plane round to land again asap?