According to White House secretary, Dana Perino, the Times subheadline, “White House role was wider than it said”,was “inaccurate”.

The White House considers the article as a “misleading press report” that needs to be changed. However, the White House didn’t request any changes to the article’s content. “The New York Times’ inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling, and we are formally requesting that NYT correct the subheadline of this story,” Perino said.

According to a Times' representative, the requested change has been done on the newspaper’s website and a print correction will be published soon.

Dean Baquet, the Times’ Washington D.C. bureau chief, admitted the subheadline “went a litte farther from the story” but remains convinced the facts in the piece are accurate.  “Nobody has challenged the thrust of
the story”, Baquet said.

“If they want to quibble with the deck, they have a legitimate point. But nobody is raising any questions with what the story is about, and what the story said.”

The leading world-power remains cautious with all news dealing with the Guantanamo issue and the might-be torture acts, all the more when those directly involve the White House. This event exemplifies the American administration's heightened concerns for all 'security' issues.

Although this may seem like a curve to press freedom, the Times Washington bureau chief seems to agree or at least accept the White House's request. Let's hope this particular instance isn't representative of compliance in general.

According to the “Reporter sans frontiers” 2006 study, the USA are ranked 53d in press freedom.

Source: Politico through Media Bistro and European Journalism Centre.