New York Times food writer and reporter Mark Bittman issued an apology on his nytimes.com blog on Tuesday for a venemous post on the recent death of Chick-fil-A's vice-president for public relations Donald Perry.
In a recent blog post, I used an inappropriate phrase to refer to the late VP of PR for Chick-fil-A. My choice of words did not rise to either my own standards or to The Times’s, and the phrase has been removed from the post. I regret this lapse.
Bittman deleted the phrase in bold below from an August 3 round-up blog post, as noted on Jim Romenesko's media blog. (The previous item had been about pigs.)
Speaking of pigs, the VP of PR for Chick-fil-A dropped dead of a heart attack the week after the chain’s latest homophobia/anti-gay marriage scandal. Here’s an obit, and here’s more about him. Meanwhile, Chick-fil-A had record-breaking profits after its President, Dan Cathy, drew a line in the sand over same-sex marriage.
Bittman's callous phrase "dropped dead of a heart attack" remains.
Bittman has long has a nasty self-righteous liberal streak, working sophomoric political commentary into his food pieces. In an March 29, 2011 column for the print edition Bittman announced he was fasting in protest against a Republican plan to cut food stamps: "These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts - they'd barely make a dent - will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now....This is a moral issue; the budget is a moral document....we can sink further into debt and amoral individualism by demonizing and starving the poor. Which side are you on?"
At the end of the fast Bittman, a best-selling cookbook author who makes a good living selling his wares to other privileged foodies, followed up on his blog blaming hunger on "unregulated capitalism and greed" and calling for higher taxes on businesses and the wealthy.
