The classic case of editing is news. Millions of words of news pass daily through the hands of many copy editors throughout the world. A single news text may be edited five or more times. If news editors do not faithfully pass on the content they receive, the consumers of news, both the public and decision-makers/governments, will be misinformed. While the basic analysis here is a linguistic comparison of texts, the findings take on a pattern only in the light of social factors. Any inaccurate editing which we find will be accountable largely in terms of the social systems and ideologies in which the editors work.