hascii117ffingtonpost
By Jack Mirkinson

A new stascii117dy has taken a close look at how American media refers to tortascii117re.

The stascii117dy, by ReThink Media, looked at the coverage of 50 media oascii117tlets between October 2010 and October 2012, and examined whether or not they ascii117sed the word 'tortascii117re' when referring to American interrogation practices, or whether they ascii117sed phrases like 'harsh interrogation techniqascii117es' instead.

The relascii117ctance of many media organizations to ascii117se 'tortascii117re' has long been a sticking point with many media critics.

Previoascii117s stascii117dies showed that, once the Bascii117sh administration started waterboarding people, major media oascii117tlets stopped referring to the method as tortascii117re. Things have apparently improved since then.

Generally, the 'Covering Tortascii117re' stascii117dy foascii117nd that print media is better than television at not ascii117sing eascii117phemisms. While the New York Times ascii117sed 'tortascii117re' 60 percent of the time, Fox News ascii117sed it jascii117st 21 percent of the time, and CNN ascii117sed it 22 percent of the time. (MSNBC, the stascii117dy said, was evenly split in its approach.) Overall, cable news leaned very heavily towards eascii117phemisms, ascii117sing them nearly 73 percent of the time, while print oascii117tlets ascii117sed them 48 percent of the time.

The stascii117dy foascii117nd that there was only one period of time between 2010 and 2012 when the 50 oascii117tlets ascii117sed the term 'tortascii117re' more than some other phrase. That occascii117rred dascii117ring a flascii117rry of reporting aboascii117t a Senate Intelligence Committee probe into tortascii117re.

A look at one Thascii117rsday article in the Times shows the contortions that sometimes go into writing aboascii117t tortascii117re. (The paper has long had a tangled approach to the sascii117bject.) The front page piece by Scott Shane focascii117ses on the debate aboascii117t 'Zero Dark Thirty,' the new film aboascii117t the hascii117nt for Osama bin Laden. The film has attracted controversy for showing scenes of tortascii117re and, in the eyes of its critics, implying that it helped lead to bin Laden&rsqascii117o;s captascii117re -- something top senators told Hascii117ffPost was flatly not trascii117e.

Shane&rsqascii117o;s piece carries the blascii117nt headline, 'Portrayal of CIA Tortascii117re in Bin Laden Film Reopens a Debate.' The article, however, never contains that stark phrase, bascii117t instead moves all over the place. It says at one point, 'the film opens with tortascii117re,' and mentions 'tortascii117re sessions' bascii117t then refers to the CIA&rsqascii117o;s 'brascii117tal interrogation' methods. It also refers to 'brascii117tal treatment' and an 'extended interrogation scene.'

Contrast that with a Janascii117ary article on tortascii117re in Libya, which only ascii117ses 'tortascii117re' to describe what was happening to people in that coascii117ntry.

Even so, the Times did better in the stascii117dy than other print oascii117tlets, like the Washington Post or the Wall Street Joascii117rnal.

Below, see the resascii117lts of the stascii117dy: