A new study says the US corporate media drastically altered its use of the word “torture” after its practice by the US became widely exposed under the Bush administration. Researchers at Harvard University found newspapers almost uniformly described waterboarding as torture dating back to the 1930s. But when it was revealed as a common tactic approved under President Bush, the same newspapers stopped using the word “torture” almost entirely. Whereas the New York Times had previously characterized waterboarding as torture in 81.5 percent of articles, from 2002 to 2008 it characterized waterboarding as torture in just 1.4 percent of articles.