Handling agents - whether company employees or not - are notorious around the world for giving inaccurate information - often because of imperfect understanding of technical processes or inadequate briefing.
Sporran's approach is ideal - and one I used whenever possible in my own time in the business. Telling passengers exactly what the problem was and what we were trying to do about it defused many potential complaints before they were inflicted on the cabin crew and soured the atmosphere on board.
However, it has to be accepted that the captain may be very busy trying to resolve the situation - and many competent skippers are not so comfortable facing a large and potentially hostile audience! In my experience though, most passengers accept and understand problems when they are given accurate information.
SB