After broadcasting an audio clip on the “Today” show about George Zimmerman last month that hit the trifecta of being misleading, incendiary and dead-bang wrong, NBC News management took serious action: it fired the producer in charge and issued a statement apologizing for making it appear as if Mr. Zimmerman had made overtly racist statements.


The only thing NBC didn’t do was correct the report on the “Today” show.


What is it with television news and corrections? When the rest of the journalism world gets something wrong, they generally correct themselves. But network news acts as if an on-air admission of error might cause a meteor to land on the noggin of one of its precious talking heads. NBC used all of the powers at its disposal to amend the mistake, except the high-visibility airtime where the bad clip ran in the first place.


Here is how NBC edited the clip of Mr. Zimmerman, who is now charged with second-degree murder in the Trayvon Martin case:


“This guy looks like he’s up to no good. ... he looks black.”


Here is what Mr. Zimmerman actually said:


“This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” The dispatcher then asks, “O.K., and this guy — is he white, black or Hispanic?” Mr. Zimmerman pauses and replies, “He looks black.”


The clip was first broadcast on March 22, but no one noticed until it was rebroadcast on March 27. Later, when word of the misleading edit got out, everyone from Sean Hannity to Jon Stewart reacted with disbelief, with good reason.


Some went on to draw a line from NBC to MSNBC and its aggressive coverage of the incident and then on to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has tried — awkwardly and unsuccessfully — to tread the line between talk show host and advocate.


People I talked to in and around NBC say it was idiocy, not ideology, that led to the edit, and that seems like a reasonable explanation, so I’m not buying that part about it being one more example of the liberal plot to subvert America.


But even absent motive, it was a remarkable lapse in editorial process that inflamed a highly emotional issue, and it created suspicion that journalists and media outlets were picking sides. Erik Wemple of The Washington Post called the incident “high editorial malpractice” because it took the tape of the 911 call — the only hard and fast piece of evidence in an otherwise murky case — and mangled it beyond recognition.


Clearly, broadcast news time is precious and it would be impractical to correct every small error. But this was no misdemeanor. This was a deeply misleading compression in editing about an event that has taken on national significance.


Somewhere in the four expansive hours of “Today” — perhaps between the segment about a loud peacock that was bothering neighbors and the preview of Eva Longoria’s show about “hunky bachelors” — somebody could have looked into the camera and set the story straight.


I called Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, prepared to do battle over the lack of on-air remediation. Even though Mr. Capus had personally investigated the error, issued two statements on the matter, taken disciplinary action against six employees and led a series of meetings to remind people of best practices, nobody on the “Today” show had explained what happened, or apologized for it, to the audience.


That seemed wrong to me. A network’s primary contract is with the viewers who tune in to its shows every day, one that is more important than any obligation it feels to journalistic pundits or Beltway politicos.


“You’re probably right,” Mr. Capus said right away.


Gee, I hate when that happens. All of the arguments I had rehearsed were suddenly defused. We talked some more anyway.