The author is working with the same information as everyone else (from Japan), and Japan has shown a systematic obsession with controlling the information that is released about its nuclear program -- and any crisis, really. Given that they put the ambassador on CNN to downplay the entire thing, I don't doubt for a minute that the same machinery is at work here. What the article calls a "weakness" in crisis communication, I call intentional.
So even though the write-up dances around it, really, the author is working with the same information coming out of Japan as we are and is describing what he theorizes is the case. You can go after his Ph.D. in Risk Management if you want, but that's beside the point -- I still think it's interesting, though.
I'm all for the long view just like everyone else, and I'd rather wait for, you know, those actually pushing the buttons on the reactor to tell us the scope of the crisis rather than some professor at MIT who digests information and dumbs it down like Bill Nye. Really, don't throw in the towel because this guy wants to downplay the crisis just like Japan's government is doing.
In case you're wondering, this is who (allegedly) wrote the article: