NEW YORK, February 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Byron Calame, the public editor (ombudsman) of the New York Times, has once again taken the Times to task for publishing a grossly inaccurate article on data concerning women living without a spouse that included 15-year-olds.

In his op-ed “Can a 15-Year-Old Be a ‘Woman Without a Spouse’?”, Calame berated the Times for allowing “serious journalistic lapses” in a front page January 16 article by veteran reporter Sam Roberts. Although Roberts’ article “sounded like grown-up stuff”, it was exposed by LifeSiteNews.com and others as both inaccurate and misleading.

. . .

“At the Page One meeting there was agreement that the story was especially newsworthy because of the for-the-first-time-more-living-alone-than-with-a-spouse angle,” Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, also told Calame in an e-mail. “No questions about the methodology or age categories were discussed.”

Reread that last line, and slowly. Take a deep breath.

With that sort of attitude, I'd be willing to venture that we actually hit the number sometime in prehistory, inclusive of "women" from birth until death. But that's just me.