Culture War Journalism

The New York Times' public editor responds to complaints about the recent front-page story proclaiming that more than half of American women now live without a husband.  The tally was made possible by counting 15 year-olds as "women living without a spouse."  (A previous MoJ post on the criticism is here.)  The editor concludes:

The eye-catching assertion that more women in America were living without a husband than with one obviously vaulted this article to Page One. “It is true that the 51 percent benchmark probably lifted this story onto the front page,” Jack Kadden, a deputy national editor who oversaw its preparation, wrote in an e-mail. “It is certainly what caught our attention.”

It was discouraging to find yet another article with an unusual angle that didn’t seem to encounter many skeptical editors as it made its way to the front page. “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, wrote to me in an e-mail. “No questions about the methodology or age categories were discussed.”