Mr. Carr’s writing was plain-spoken and could be blunt; he often gathered in readers conspiratorially and was sometimes self-referential and conscience-stricken. The effect was both folksy and sophisticated, a voice from a shrewd and well-informed skeptic.

“We want our anchors to be both good at reading the news and also pretending to be in the middle of it,” he wrote on Monday in the wake of revelations that the NBC anchor Brian Williams had lied about being in a helicopter under fire in Iraq in 2003.

“That’s why, when the forces of man or Mother Nature whip up chaos, both broadcast and cable news outlets are compelled to ship the whole heaving apparatus to far-flung parts of the globe, with an anchor as the flag bearer. We want our anchors to be everywhere, to be impossibly famous, globe-trotting, hilarious, down-to-earth and, above all, trustworthy. It’s a job description that no one can match.”

In a statement, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the newspaper’s publisher and chairman, said that “David Carr was one of the most gifted journalists who has ever worked at The New York Times.” And in an email to staff members Thursday night, Dean Baquet, the executive editor, described Mr. Carr as “the finest media reporter of his generation, a remarkable and funny man who was one of the leaders of our newsroom.”

“He was our biggest champion,” Mr. Baquet added, “and his unending passion for journalism and for truth will be missed by his family at The Times, by his readers around the world and by people who love journalism.”