New York Times v. The Washington Post: Nothing To Do with Pentagon Papers

This week President Obama announced that he will be taking "steps that broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions and ensure the humane treatment of detainees." This quote comes from a statement made by the President regarding changing policy on how to treat Guantanamo Bay and its detainees. The idea is to further the legal rights of the prisoners by supplying lawyers or giving them the right to private representation. But all of this is a far cry from Obama's promise to close Gitmo, a constant platform of his campaign in 2008.

So how does one deal with Obama's predicament. Is it a change of heart? Was he ever planning on closing the prison? Maybe he wanted to but wasn't able to come up with a practical way of doing it?

The NYT and the WP found different ways of grappling with this issue through headlines. The NYT headlined the story as "Closing Guantánamo Fades as a Priority", while the Washington Post headlined it as "Obama creates indefinite detention system for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay". There is a stark distinction in approach to this manner. The NYT uses the word "priority", which connotes a sense of shuffled importance. Gitmo, the nyt could argue, was really important and it still is but we have other important things to deal with now. The WP on the other hand, uses more of a subtitle than a catchy quick idea.

This is a great example of how media approaches different subjects and is able to give its own spin based on how they approach it.