media - "Even our highest leaders can make mistakes"

Jane MacCartney of The Times has an amusing story about the interview she was granted with premier Wen Jiabao, ahead of this trip to Europe. Almost a day later she gets the official transcript of the meeting that differs from what all those crews have been recording.
It reminded me of an interview I had with what was called a diplomatic reporter of the state news agency Xinhua, already quite some time ago. In those days few people would understand Chinese and that was fortunately, said our reporter, since "even our highest leaders can make mistakes" when they talk to foreign guests. In most cases the translators would cover that and tell the audience what their leader should have told. Even those translators were not perfect, he said, so sometimes the journalists would rewrite also the translations.