According to this story, the New York Times may eliminate its ombudsman position after "current public editor Byron Calame's confirmation that LifeSiteNews.com was correct in asserting the Times made a major error in reporting on criminal penalties for abortion in El Salvador."
I discussed the NYT story in this post.
According to the LifeSiteNews story:
The first recorded mention of the intention to axe the position was raised at a December 15 New York Times meeting where Times' executive editor Bill Keller raised the idea. That meeting was held about a week after Calame began asking very uncomfortable questions of senior editors at the Times, and receiving in response terse replies rejecting his warnings that the NYT magazine had been caught in a serious error which deserved correction.
With information from contacts in El Salvador, LifeSiteNews.com pointed out that the cover article in the NYT magazine of April 6 claimed falsely that some women in El Salvador were imprisoned for thirty years for illegal abortions. LifeSiteNews published the full court ruling in the case which showed that rather than being jailed for a clandestine abortion - as the Times magazine asserted - the case study cited actually concerned infanticide of a full-term baby. (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07010208.html )
Calame requested an explanation from both NYT magazine editor Gerald Marzorati and standards editor (who makes up these titles?) Craig Whitney but both stonewalled him.
Certainly, the discovery that the story was, at best, an egregious factual error and, at worst, a deliberate lie does enormous harm to the New York Time's reputation as the newspaper of record. But it isn't like this is the first hit that ship has taken over the last few years.
Having an ombudsman, a person who is supposed to represent the readers' interests at the newspaper, is a valuable service. That the vaunted NYT might axe the position because the public editor stated that the emperor has no clothes is reprehensible.
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