I actually think this falls more to Hanlon's Razor "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

My guess is that the guys that know what is really happening are way too busy to give good status reports that have been boiled down to a level that laymen can understand. On top of that the pressure to say/do something (brought on by our continuos live news reporting) is resulting in a lot of vague / halfway accurate information being presented by the spokespersons for the company and government.

Press reports in my field (not nuke power) are always filled with a lot of misinformation and factual mistakes. None of it intentional (I hope) but it is understandable since it takes a long time to develop the skills and domain knowledge for my field. Similarly, early disaster reports focus on getting something out, not necessarily getting confirmations. These factors combined lead to a lot of vague speculative and even doom and gloom types of reporting since "if it bleeds it leads" is the general mantra of our press.

- Eric