This is a failure of the journalist to understand the distinction between "public/private key cryptography" and "public/private key cryptography as used in the

This is a failure of the journalist to understand the distinction between "public/private key cryptography" and "public/private key cryptography as used in the SSL/TLS certificate authority scheme". I'm pretty sure that they guy (s)he was interviewing knew the difference. Of course, configuring your system to trust any valid certificate is just stupid.