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What should have been a day to celebrate the news of Mala Sichuan Bistro's expansion turned into a war of words on Twitter. The argument wasn't over the much beloved restaurant moving to Montrose nor common complaints of parking woes, instead, a back-and-forth dispute over who received the news of owners Cori Xiong and Heng Chen's big move inside the loop first.
Chris Baldwin, CultureMap's network news director/managing editor and sports contributor, took issue with Houston Chronicle's Alison Cook for failing to cite the online publication and its food writer, Eric Sandler, who broke the Mala Sichuan story first Wednesday evening:
Big restaurant news broken by @esandler @culturemap http://t.co/q9dXEZuY1l Paper critic still passes it off as hers, gives no credit #Icon
— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) January 8, 2015
Sandler published his piece at 9:36 pm and Cook at 10:29pm. It's usually a common courtesy for local food publications to credit the other if a story was broken first, but not always, as was the case here. Cook fired back with several tweets stating she didn't need to acknowledge CultureMap's piece because she received the information earlier in the day from Xiong.
.@ChrisYBaldwin @esandler @culturemap If you're going to slam me, at least get your facts straight. I had it at suppertime.
— Alison Cook (@alisoncook) January 9, 2015
Unreal. & wrong. MT @ChrisYBaldwin Big restaurant news broken by @esandler Paper critic still passes it off as hers, gives no credit #Icon
— Alison Cook (@alisoncook) January 9, 2015
.@ChrisYBaldwin @esandler @culturemap Believe it or not I don't sit around refreshing your page, I have stuff to do.
— Alison Cook (@alisoncook) January 9, 2015
.@ChrisYBaldwin @esandler @culturemap I saw your post after I put mine up, saw no reason to change mine in any way.
— Alison Cook (@alisoncook) January 9, 2015
Baldwin fired back and questioned Cook's honesty:
Please @alisoncook You posted three paragraphs an hour after @esandler full story went up. Twitter timelines do not lie.
— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) January 9, 2015
What followed next were series of Twitter exchanges between the Chronicle restaurant critic, Baldwin, CultureMap food writer Eric Sandler and their followers over who received what news first and if it all mattered:
When you say you found out is immaterial @alisoncook Fact is @esandler broke story, you posted well after and did not credit. No slam. Fact
— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) January 9, 2015
.@ChrisYBaldwin @esandler I had no reason to credit him when I posted. Didn't know his post existed. saw it later. You're really reaching.
— Alison Cook (@alisoncook) January 9, 2015
@esandler and….this means what, to you, exactly. It's getting comical.
— Alison Cook (@alisoncook) January 9, 2015
. @alisoncook she called you after I already had it. You got beat on this one. It happens. @ChrisYBaldwin
— Eric S (@esandler) January 9, 2015
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