I don’t have as much a problem with transparency and bias in the media as I do with journalists just getting the story and getting it right.
Remember that statistic I referenced last month about 51% of American women living without a spouse? That was from a front-page New York Times article on January 16th that ended up spurring analysis across the media spectrum, plus snide comments about the photo of the single woman petting her cat.
This Sunday there arrived a little-ballyhooed follow-up article on the Op-Ed page of the Times by public editor Byron Calame, who pointed out that the only case in which the 51% statistic is true is when the survey data is expanded to count teenagers aged 15 through 17 as “spouseless women.” As you might guess, nearly 90% of those girls live with their parents.
Although the range of ages used in collecting the survey data was noted in the article, it was buried below the 20th paragraph in mentions that were either inaccurate or minimal. So the central point of a front-and-center article in one of the country’s most esteemed newspapers was just plain inaccurate/misleading.
There’s more: an unsettling suggestion of editorial finagling to promote the story’s position over its clarity. An early draft seen by Calame mentioned the survey’s age range much earlier and more clearly. As a Times deputy national editor told Calame, the assertion that more women in America are living without a husband than with one “probably lifted this story onto the front page.”
Post-Jayson Blair, the Times has sanded down some of its classic self-righteousness by appointing a public editor and running extensive corrections daily. But as these elements make clear, the Times screws up often in ways great and small. Worst, this article was piddly in the grand scheme, nothing like a strong exposé dealing with politics, government or business; makes me wonder what’s getting misreported elsewhere. Trust no media fully!