I recently emailed NYT ombudsman/public editor Daniel Okrent to ask why the paper described U.S. treatment of prisoners in Iraq as "abuse" rather than "torture." Evidently I wasn't the only one. Here's his response... Doug
----------
I hope you realize the answer given by the assistant managing editors (Whitney and Siegal) as an explanation for NYT policy was very likely a flat out lie. (See quote below)
When the story broke, I watched tape of Rumsfeld at his pentagon(?) news briefing on pbs NewsHour. An off camera reporter asked him a question and used the word `torture'. Rumsfeld stopped the reporter, and corrected him, explaining that he wanted to be precise. The term was `abuse'. The reports he was aware of referred to `abuse', and that was the term to use. He waved his hand around a little saying that `torture' was something else, some other thing entirely. (or words to that effect)
It was clear to me in that context, that the administration official language spin was going to insist on the word `abuse'. The implication was that the press should stay away from a word like `torture'.
In other words, Rumsfeld was working out for the reporter what was going to be an approved spin, and what was going to be strongly disapproved spin. Translation: if you use `torture' instead of `abuse' you can say goodbye to your press pass.
Here is as close as I could get to a reference about this Rumsfeld news briefing and this exchange with a reporter. It comes from CNN transcripts at:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/09/rs.00.html
What's under discussion is Rumsfeld's reputation with the press. (SMITH here is Terence Smith from the NewsHour):
``SMITH: It's also just sort of exhaustive overexposure. I mean, I think we've all had it with Rumsfeld's briefings in which he wants to parse the meaning of torture versus abuse. People lose patience with that.''
So, put two and two together. If the NYT ran `Torture Scandal Widens', guess how long it would take the WT Press Secretary or Rumsfeld's office to get on the horn?
Maybe the Bush administration isn't that blunt. Maybe it's all understood. Use words we warn you against and we will cut you out. So pay attention. I don't know.
But the explanation is certainly not that a NYT editor had to consider the definitions of two words and chose one for the sake of accuracy. That amounts to spin on spin.
CG
------------
``...I asked assistant managing editors Craig Whitney and Allan M. Siegal for comment as they are, respectively, in charge of the news desk (where front page headlines get written) and all matters of language and style. Both were surprised when I raised the issue; both noted some substantive definitional distinctions between "abuse" and "torture"; both asserted that there is no Times policy one way or another; and both acknowledged that readers may be right...''
[from: dokrent - 3:09 PM ET June 1, 2004 (#30 of 30) 'Torture' vs. 'Abuse' In The Times's Coverage of Iraq Prisons]