[shun]

Originally Posted by riverkid

It depends on the angle the reporter wants..... It depends on the time, some speaker choice, [as certain areas of English allow freedoms, sometimes known as 'artistic license', 'newspaper English'] semantics/meaning and structual considerations.

Exactly what depends what angle? Are you saying we may use any tense at all? I am afraid we cannot call the dilemma a freedom, can we? Here is the dilemma:

Either (1) wrong use of Simple Past:
As in "In Rome, Prodi's office SAID he discussed....", when will the reporter use Simple Past SAID? Is it at once when he hears it? If so, it is ungrammatical. This also hardly explains why reporters use Simple Present "says" sometimes.

or (2) cooking the tense:
Or is it when the reporter is back in press room, pretending the saying is now over? If so, however, why is the news headline in Simple Present "wants"? Again, this also hardly explains why reporters use Simple Present "says" sometimes.

No matter the choice, it is not the correct way to use Simple Past. I cannot think of any angle to help the choice.