TechCrunch terminated an intern who accepted compensation from an outside company in exchange for coverage. The announcement strikes an appropriate tone, but it also includes a passage that ties into a much bigger issue: when a writer goes rogue, what do you do with their published work? Here's how TechCrunch responded:

This was not one of our full time writers, and so the frequency of posts was light. Nevertheless, we've also deleted all content created by this person on our blogs. We are fairly certain that most of the posts weren't tainted in any way, but to be sure we've removed every word written by this person on the TechCrunch network.

One big caveat: the intern in question is a minor, so that certainly takes precedence in any reaction. But the intern posted his own follow up. Privacy implications are moot at this point.

And that brings me back to the bigger issue ...

In situations like these, if we assume the wayward writer is an adult, and we assume there are no broader legal issues at play, should the writer's past work be stricken from the record? Is that the right response?

I don't think so. An enterprising snoop could mine caches and old RSS feeds for past copies, so deletion isn't really the Draconian measure it's intended to be. Beyond that, the cat's already out of the bag. The writer screwed up. The publishing outlet looks bad. And any move to wipe the slate clean will leave lasting residue. So why wipe it clean at all?

In situations where the wrongdoing is already public -- whether announced by the publisher or dug up by someone else -- what I'd prefer to see is a prominent editor's note placed at the very top of every piece the writer ever posted on the publisher's site. It could be a simple link to the termination announcement. It doesn't have to be dramatic. The New York Times used a similar tactic with Jayson Blair's articles.

Advertising should be stripped from these pages and comments closed. That's appropriate -- this isn't a revenue or publicity opportunity. But it's important to keep the original material in place. The mistake happened in the public sphere. You can't take that back, but you can be up front about it both in the near-term and down the road.

From The New York Times:

The average iPhone or iPod Touch owner uses 5 to 10 apps regularly, according to Flurry, a research firm that studies mobile trends. This despite the surfeit of available apps: some 140,000 and counting.

I've seen the same stat mentioned before. Heck, I referenced that stat in a piece I wrote. But what I find surprising is that anyone is surprised by this. It's the behavioral equivalent of the Long Tail: a few apps get frequent use -- the blockbusters -- while the others wane after post-installation popularity or, even worse, don't get downloaded at all.

Instead of this broad-based stuff, what I'd really like to see is data that links up people's interests/professions with their most-used apps.

This piece looking at results from YouTube's rental experiment illustrates the short-sighted thinking that handcuffs content companies:

Ouch! We're talking about 1,422 total views, or $5,673.78 for all of the rentals at $3.99 apiece. If Google is giving the filmmakers roughly two-thirds of the take -- and I'm going by other digital-media standards, since the site isn't publicly spelling out the royalty payouts -- each of the five productions will walk away with just hundreds of dollars for their role as video-sharing pioneers over the weekend.

I put this paragraph in the "trading analog dollars for digital pennies" genre. It's catchy. Reasonable on first glance. But when you dig deeper, it's ultimately ridiculous.

That $5,673.78 figure isn't the key. The big deal -- and the hope -- lies in the 1,422 views. That's 1,422 chances for filmmakers to have their work seen. That's 1,422 more chances than they had before. The value of those views lies not in financial rewards (although that would be nice), but as a counter to an artist's great enemy: obscurity. Isn't that why film festivals exist? To show off work? To create the possibility of engagement? To create the possibility of landing theatrical distribution? How is YouTube's effort any different?

Here's the broader problem with this type of bottom-line analysis: digital income will almost always be lower than traditional income because digital audiences are smaller and empowered. They don't have to blindly accept what's given to them. They can pick and choose. They can sample. That's a powerful set of tools. It means control rests solely in consumers' hands.

Consumer control is the essential truth of digital content. Until that's acknowledged -- and until businesses are built to work in conjunction with this truth -- content companies will spin their wheels, lose money, and whine incessantly.

A phenomenal post from Jason Fry at the National Sports Journalism Center:

When I started Faith and Fear in Flushing with my friend Greg Prince in the winter of 2005, I'd been at The Wall Street Journal Online for nearly 10 years. But despite all that time as a Web guy, I'd adopted some rather unhealthy attitudes. I was studiously uninterested in knowing how many readers read my columns, and only took a passing interest in their reactions to them. I thought that my job was to be a thinker and a writer. Worrying about traffic numbers? That was somebody else's job - and a lesser calling.

This was arrogant and dumb, and a few weeks of writing Faith and Fear showed me that. On my own blog, the numbers were of immense interest to me. I pored over them every day in an effort to figure out what posts were connecting with readers and what posts weren't. I was singing for my supper, and it made me a better columnist. If a column was well written but didn't seem to connect, I wasn't happy with it. I no longer dismissed Web traffic as not my job, complained about writing promos for my stuff, or gave reader comments and emails short shrift. And I realized those folks on the business side were critical to our collective success, and could teach me things. [Emphasis added.]

I'll add this: journalism's biggest mistake was allowing business apathy/hatred among the editorial ranks. That's a far more egregious "sin" than publishing free Web content.

An ongoing list of journalism habits that get stuck in my craw.

Audience hatred -- You are not better than your readers. You are not smarter than your readers. You can hate readers all you want in your off time, but while you're on the clock you need to serve them with everything you've got. Find value. Create value. Seek viewpoints. Respond to comments. Give a shit. Without an audience, you've got nothing.

Killing (tech) -- Technologies do not kill other technologies. One might supplant another. The market might choose another. But gadgets do not have homicidal urges (yet).

Lists of pet peeves -- That's right. I'm violating my own pet peeve. No one cares! (And yet, I continue ...)

Non-linking -- Please. Seriously. Please. If you include a URL in a story, and that story is posted on the Web, you must take the three extra seconds required to link it in.

Stand-in opinions -- Squeezing a quote out of a source that just happens to dovetail with the exact point you sought to make does not make you objective. At best, you're being opaque. At worst, lame. Just say it. Put it out there. I'd appreciate the honesty. Maybe all the time you've spent researching and talking with folks has given you -- hold on, this is gonna hurt -- an opinion of your own.

Stealing and/or non-acknowledgement -- I realize journalists are supposed to live for the exclusive. That's fine. Competition is a good thing. But when you get scooped, give credit where it's due. Cite the original source and link to the story, even if it's a hated competitor. They won this battle, maybe you'll get the next one.

Got others? Please share them below.