Boston.com Editor Demoted After Harvard Professor’s $4 Rant Goes Viral

--FILE--View of slices of roast duck with condiments at a restaurant in Hong Kong, China, 5 December 2013. Chinese food– or at least some portion of it – may be soon joining the likes of kimchi and Mediterranean... --FILE--View of slices of roast duck with condiments at a restaurant in Hong Kong, China, 5 December 2013. Chinese food– or at least some portion of it – may be soon joining the likes of kimchi and Mediterranean food on Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage items. The Chinese Cuisine Association, which tried to get Chinese cuisine on the list in 2011 when it proposed more than 30 foods and food-preparation techniques, is making another go at getting Chinese food on the organization’s list. But this time, they’re making a more targeted recommendation. Which Chinese foods should make the Unesco list? Opinions are nearly as diverse as Chinese cuisine itself. Judith Farquhar, author of “Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China,” says she’d go for dumplings. Qu Hao, a Chinese chef who won the China Golden Chef Award given by The Chinese Cuisine Association, recommends braised sea cucumber with leeks because it “enjoys a long history,” he says Shi Xiusong, chef and general manager of Da Dong Roast Duck restaurant, recommends his restaurant’s specialty dish as a combination of inheritance and innovation with a storied history. Meanwhile, Shu Qiao, editor of the Chinese Epicure magazine and an author of several books about food, recommends fermented tofu and Shaoxing wine. MORE LESS

By Catherine Thompson

December 18, 2014 10:58 a.m.

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Last week, Boston.com’s story on a Harvard Business School professor who waged war on a local Chinese restaurant because of a $4 overcharge went viral.

So the website followed up with more juicy scoops. It reported the professor, Ben Edelman, had previously berated management at another sushi bar. In another article, it reported the professor escalated his campaign against the restaurant with an email that contained a racial slur. But Edelman denied writing the racially charged email, and the website took down the story because it couldn’t verify that he was the sender.

Now it appears Boston.com is taking the editor who wrote the articles, Hilary Sargent, down a peg as well.

Local news site BostInno reported Thursday that the website was poised to announce it would replace Sargent as editor and shift her over to a senior writer role, citing anonymous sources.

Reached for comment, a spokeswoman for Boston Globe Media Partners provided TPM with a statement from Corey Gottlieb, Boston.com’s general manager.

“As a policy, we do not publicly comment about personnel matters,” Gottlieb said.

Sargent also declined to comment to TPM.

The editor had been suspended since Friday for creating and promoting a T-shirt that mocked the Harvard professor, according to the Boston Globe. (The two entities are owned by the same company, but maintain separate newsroom staffs.)

Sargent designed a shirt that read “Didn’t go to HBS. Also didn’t lose my shit over FOUR dollars” and promoted it on Twitter, according to BostInno. Both the tweet and the T-shirt for sale on Zazzle.com were later removed.

The T-shirt was the rationale for the suspension, Gottlieb told the Globe at the time. He told the newspaper that the matter of the unconfirmed story had been “handled internally.”

Eleanor Cleverly, the site’s classifieds editor, is slated to replace Sargent in the interim, according to BostInno’s report.

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Catherine Thompson (@kt_thomps) Catherine Thompson is a senior editor for Talking Points Memo in New York City. She came to the site in 2013 and reported on national affairs. Previously, she worked as a research assistant to investigative reporter Wayne Barrett. She can be reached at catherine@talkingpointsmemo.com.

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