I haven't studied this in detail, but a quick search in some period newspapers shows the attached for example.
The headline reads "
Not a lot of new information in report". The initial paragraph is: "
The report on the Tenerife accident that was published yesterday, a year and a half after the major disaster on the island, does not contain much that is new. In fact, the conclusions agree with what experts put forward as the most likely cause shortly after the accident: The KLM captain, Jaap Veldhuizen van Zanten, initiated the take off without having received clearance to do so from the tower."
Scanning through other articles from those days, you do get the impression that, especially in the first few days, there was a lot of disbelief, 'surely he hasn't done that'. But based on an article like the one below, I can't say that the truth was buried or minimised. There were also articles expressing the sentiment that the tower should have stopped him, showing that journalists without a clue existed in those days too.
Just my two cents.