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Twitter Feud Ignites Overnight Between CultureMap and Houston Chronicle Writers

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Can't we all get along?



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:


Sandler published his piece at 9:36 pm and Cook at . 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.



Baldwin fired back and questioned Cook's honesty:



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: