"Torture"

As any journalist, I would imagine that the proper choice of words would be the hardest of all obligations and responsibilities while writing a story. Journalists aim to "tell the truth", which I would not imagine to be easy, however finding the appropriate descriptive words would seem to pose more of a issue not to mention make the situation more challenging than finding the truth. That brings me to the point about "torture" being used by Mazzetti/Hulse in the New York Times article. Every word triggers different emotions and feelings for each individual reading the newspaper, however the word "torture" one would imagine to have a common theme of negative connotation. That is why the word, when used, was used only in a quote, because then if people disagreed they could look at the situation and lay blame with the speaker rather than the writer. It is a tough situation because no word can please everyone and is guaranteed to be precise.