Terence Tao is a great mathematician - accepted. But I wish journalists would use a fraction of the space they use for hyping Terence Tao to write about the mathematics he does.
Or to explain it in different terms: When one asks me, what I'm doing as a mathematician (in research): When the other person works in a related area I can give a short, concise explanation that they will understand. On the other hand, if the counterpart hasn't that deep knowledge, I have to give longer explanations that are understandable for their level of knowledge. But this is not what they want to hear (and I have not yet found out, what they want to hear). For me it's quite illogical to ask what I'm doing research about, if they don't even want to hear the answer...