It's the same article, same author.
I think he was given a leak, and he reports it. I don't think it's disinformation in that it's false, so I see no problem with the author. In fact, since he's a smart one, I bet 50-50 when given the info he asked how old the test was - being a year old, something the leaker probably wouldn't have offered up first.
They didn't say it was a year old, they said it was "at least a year ago" (my emphasis). Weasel words. The discovery could have been made in November, 2001, for all we know.
In fact, I'd bet that the discovery was made closer to two years ago. If not, why would they have used weasel wording?
Perhaps the reason for this is that they don't want to go before the judge and say that they've known this since the very beginning but they want to use it an excue for a delay now.
I agree with you on Shane, BTW.