Trust is something hard to come by and when dealing with foreign sources you have to rely on translators and their issues. What is worse, even if the translators are reliable, alterations can be made after the fact, but verification is difficult because of language barriers.

Here is an example that my father found about Putin's person of the year interview with Time. Time published a full transcript [1] in English and Kremlin published the full transcript [2] in Russian. The very first question is different! Kremlin's version includes a question where the reported bungled the Putin's birthday and though he was born in 1946 instead of 1952, but Time omits it. It wasn't a very substantive question, but it did set the tone for the interview and the difference is upsetting. As far as I know this particular issue has not been widely discussed for the past 7 years.

If media and/or governments alter the smallest records for reasons of incompetence, what do they do to hide larger errors?

[1] http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/a... [2] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=ht...