Conflating document and commentary: bad reporting or poor releasing?

Today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released two texts, but if you read much of the reporting that has gone on today, you would not realize that fact. What are the two texts?

• the first text is a document entitled "Responses to some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church" and is available at the Vatican website in English here.
• the second text is a commentary simply entitled "Observations" (at least on the English-language page) and is currently only available on the Vatican website in Italian. An unofficial English-language translation is available, for instance, here from Vatican analyst Sandro Magister (scroll-down to find it).

Now, here is my question/problem. The Reuters story released today (under the title "Vatican says other Christian churches "wounded") conflates the document with the commentary - and indeed - favors the commentary for its quotations, mainly because those quotations are sometimes less irenic.

Here is what Reuters says towards the beginning of its story:

"16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognise the primacy of Pope.

But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in Protestant denominations."

"Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them," it said.

The "16-page document" can only refer to the actual document "Responses to some Questions..." when it is combined with the accompanying commentary. The actual document itself (without the commentary) is far shorter than 16 pages.

Moreover, the word "wound" (which is used in the Reuters headline) and the (by far most inflammatory) phrase which ends "it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could not possibly be attributed to them" both do not appear in the document: they appear in the commentary instead.

Reuters is not alone in conflating the document and the commentary in its reporting, nor is Reuters alone in favoring the commentary heavily for its quotations. Here, for example, is a quotation from the AFP's coverage:

"Central to that identity is the idea [of the Catholic Faith] that eastern or Orthodox churches were suffering a "wound" because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope."

"It [the document] said "the wound is still more profound" in "communities emerging from the Reformation" -- the Protestant and Anglican churches."

Again, in both cases the reporters are quoting the commentary and not the document itself.

This situation prompts a question: is the commentary on an equal level with the actual document to the point that one can honestly quote from both alternatively without any specification as to which one is being discussed?

The Catholic News Service article describes the commentary as "authoritative" but proceeds to be very specific when it is quoting from the commentary as opposed to quoting the document itself.

On the other hand, the VIS released today does not mention the commentary, and specifies that the document released today was published in multiple languages (in order to be readily received by the universal Church).

This leaves my final set of questions, which I'll be happy to have answered via email or in the comment box: is the media missing an important distinction (between document and commentary), and therefore should they in future avoid conflating the two genres of Vatican text? Or, do both types of text hold identical "weight"? (And in this is the case, isn't it confusing for the CDF to release two types of text when they are equally authoritative?).

Okay, I've thrown it out there.