The New York Times' David Carr chronicles the extensive effort by NBC's The Today Show to make right on an audio editing mistake that created an error.

The clip left the impression that George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin, uttered racist statements. The Today Show fired or disciplined several employees and issued a statement apologizing.

What it didn't do, Carr noted, was tell its audience it had erred. Carr examines the case as an example of American television culture about correcting the record.

"Give NBC credit for dealing with a big error that threatened to sow further mayhem on a very delicate story," he wrote. "It’s just too bad it failed to remember that the fix for bad journalism generally includes more journalism. The kind that goes on the air."

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In his latest The Media Equation column, The New York Times' David Carr notes the problem of the "burped up" thought that is Twitter, particularly when it intersects with professional expectations.

Carr cites the recent suspension of CNN's Roland Martin following a Tweet during last week's Super Bowl. Carr writes a thoughtful and self-deprecating look at the challenge of using social media when his employer has high standards. The instant judgment isn't always congruent with the overall judgment.

He concludes that 140 characters makes it difficult to be journalistic, even if it is fun and even if is a requirement.
 
 
The Columbia Journalism Review has written this week about a possible conflict for the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times. Ethan Bronner is part of a speakers' bureau for Lone Star Communications, a public relations firm that also pitches him stories.

CJR suggests in the piece that Bronner has written about some of the firm's clients as part of his work. It argues that there is an appearance of a conflict in this case. His employer argues his work and speeches comply with its ethics guidelines, but CJR raises questions about this.

"Running the Jerusalem bureau for The New York Times is a tough job in a hypersensitive area, one that attracts more than its share of slings and arrows. So maybe it is best not to hand out extra arrows, as Ethan Bronner seems to have done," the CJR's Max Blumenthal writes.

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In recent days a debate has surfaced on the ethics of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and his new fund for start-up companies. The specific issue: How can Arrington continue to write for TechCrunch (now owned by AOL) when he has venture capital (some of it AOL's) in the mix.

As it turns out, he has gone to the sidelines.

But the handling of his case and its implications have stirred a healthy discussion in the craft about conflicts of interest, preferential treatment, and whether there are new boundaries emerging of acceptable practice. In the midst of this, the head of AOL has suggested TechCrunch might have had different standards than its journalistic outlets.

The latest to weigh in is the media columnist for the New York Times, David Carr, whose writing today is withering on most everyone involved. Carr mainly registers disbelief the situation got this far, but he identifies the central problems for journalism as it deals with new challenges in reporting on technology.
 
 
Arthur Brisbane, in his first column as public editor of The New York Times, lays out his principles nicely and raises one interesting issue for news organizations in the digital age:

"If The Times is going to publish more and faster, it will have to react faster to rectify more mistakes. The speed and volume of correction or response has to try to equal the speed and volume of error."

That's a thought we haven't heard before. Newspapers tend to correct in their next edition, and unless there are legal reasons to strip online content or correct it, usually make the correction in a convenient way online without any proscribed standard of service.

Brisbane promises to see if this idea of a speedy fix is practical in the Times, but he's introduced an intriguing notion.
 
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