“These two items on successive Sundays late last month showed what can go wrong when journalists get too personal,” Hoyt wrote.

DeLaFuente used the Complain Box column — a space to write about “broader irritations of life, like loud music on the subway” — to kvetch specifically about a customer service incident, abusing his power along the way. One editor said the column “was like writing on New York Times stationery and then sending it out to a million and a quarter people.” Hoyt said, “The Times does not need the appearance that its journalists are using Complaint Box to air self-serving gripes.”

Buckley’s case, meanwhile, was a bit more controversial, and her ethical blunder a bit more egregious:

A Miami reader called attention to Buckley’s relationship with Joshua Woodward, the co-owner of the 8 oz. Burger Bar. It had been publicized earlier after Woodward was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of causing the miscarriage of a child believed to be his by another woman.

Mediaite first noticed the Buckley fiasco via NYTPicker, though Hoyt notes that Buckley was ineligable to write for the Times at all, because she has gone on free press junkets as a travel reporter.

Plus, the Times ethics manual is pretty clear on the matter of shilling for loved ones:

No journalist may report for us about any travel service or product offered by a family member or close friend.

No gray area there, Gray Lady. Hoyt closed his column thusly:

In the end, there is a bright line here. Journalists cannot use the power of The Times, or any newspaper, for what can be construed as personal purposes. It is simply wrong to look as if you are getting even with a company, or writing a plug for family or friends.

Public editor, out.

Buckley’s five-page feature on Miami nightlife includes the seemingly innocuous plug, “Have a grass-fed beef burger topped with Bel Paese cheese and a Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale at 8 oz. Burger Bar,” but some blogger digging reveals that Burger Bar co-owner Josh Woodward had a “long, incredible and beautiful relationship” with the writer.

How would the Times ethics manual respond?

No journalist may report for us about any travel service or product offered by a family member or close friend.

Ouch. But then it turns into a brutal crime thriller, via NYT Picker:

Woodward and Buckley broke up just recently — apparently right before October 29, when the Miami Herald reported that the restaurateur had been taken into Miami police custody on charges in connection with the death of a 13-week-old fetus, reportedly his child. The Herald later reported that Woodward had been charged with murder.

The Herald’s story said that Woodward “was suspected of placing an unspecified powder in the pregnant woman’s vaginal area,” causing a miscarriage.

(In California, a crime is considered fetal homicide at eight to 10 weeks gestation as defined by the California Supreme Court. You can read more about the decision here.)

If this seems like the stuff of tabloids, it is — but only if your tabloids are filled with strictly media gossip. NYT Picker has a request for comment in with the paper’s public-relations department and will continue to update the story here. NYT Picker, ladies and gentlemen — just trying to keep your Paper of Record clean.