It wasn't extensively covered here in the UK. The story was spun to concentrate on the hacking rather than what was hacked.
I'm not adopting any position on global warming but there was definitely "bad" science being done. Unfortunately in these days of limited funding a lot of scientists seems to want to prove a hypothesis, often on behalf of a funder, by discarding or ignoring evidence that may compromise that conclusion. It's been going on since Mendel and his just too perfect ratios with his peas! He knew what he wanted and the results supported it.