Althouse: "Boston.com wanted to paint me as a bad guy, and in general it’s their right to tell the story as they see fit."

December 19, 2014

"Boston.com wanted to paint me as a bad guy, and in general it’s their right to tell the story as they see fit."

"But my emails, right there for all to see, specifically indicated that I wanted the restaurant to refund all customers who had been overcharged. Somehow that key fact ended up totally missing from almost all the media coverage.... From my perspective, the most distressing aspect of the media coverage was how little attention the articles paid to my true motivations."

Said Ben Edelman, the Harvard professor whose email to a restaurant made so many people think he was a world-class asshole.

41 comments:

rehajm said...: I've had to adjust my political correctness hierarchy.

Harvard attorney fighting for the little guy against the evil corporatists = asshole. Have to remember that later on...; 12/19/14, 2:03 PM
mccullough said...: this guy is an asshole. He didnt even show that he was overcharged, much less anyone else was.

Harvard is a huge institution and his is a small business. The public sided with the right person.; 12/19/14, 2:04 PM
traditionalguy said...: Uh oh. Poor Robin Hood. He got bad press when he tried robbing hard working working restaurant owners for the benefit of wealthy tenured Professors of elite Boston schools that were overcharged what was pocket change for them.

He needs to get Elizabeth warren's advice and stick to robbing Banks.; 12/19/14, 2:06 PM
Curious George said...: Too late, asshole.; 12/19/14, 2:07 PM
Jaq said...: Sorry, but if we were playing a game, "Harvard Professor" would mean he would have to spot us the "Assho" at least.

I love that scene in World War Z where the Harvard Prof shoots himself in the head by accident within a minute of entering the film and looking like he was going to be a central character.; 12/19/14, 2:07 PM
pious agnostic said...: I'm shocked to learn that someone feels that the media misrepresented their story.; 12/19/14, 2:08 PM
Jaq said...: Robinhood was robbing cronies of the King and taking back excessive taxes and giving them to the poor, just to be clear.; 12/19/14, 2:09 PM
traditionalguy said...: @ Tim in Vermont...did you mean Elizabeth Warren is acting out the real Robin Hood narrative?; 12/19/14, 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Does this explain his jerkiness in the prior prix fixe incident?; 12/19/14, 2:13 PM
Jaq said...: @traditionalguy

Insofar as she is serious about that, I am with her. I always thought that those "investment bankers" who bet on those derivatives should have ended up on the street, forced to sell their mansions to plumbers and other honest folk.

The problem with Warren is that she brings the whole baggage of the rest of the left with her.; 12/19/14, 2:18 PM
Jaq said...: I Warren were serious about that anti-Wall Street stuff, she would reach out to Tea Party types, who are serious about it too.; 12/19/14, 2:24 PM
Anonymous said...: I have lived long enough to know something about some news stories. What I usually know is that journalists are outsiders in almost every field and only get part of the story right.

Thanks, Professor Edelman. Here is another example that what I get from the news media is only vaguely similar to reality.; 12/19/14, 2:49 PM
Chris said...: "the most distressing aspect of the media coverage was how little attention the articles paid to my true motivations"

I call bullshit. I can believe that Edelman wants to rehabilitate his image now, and has a large financial motive to paint his earlier behavior in a better light. Edelman's image and reputation are apparently worth millions of dollars, but in the email exchange with Ran Duan, he gave a master class in how to lose a negotiation.

That's just embarrassing, and I bet that's what's really "disressing" him.; 12/19/14, 2:51 PM
mccullough said...: Grundoon,

I read all the emails. The guy is an asshole.; 12/19/14, 2:51 PM
kjbe said...: "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."

-Raylan Givens, Justified; 12/19/14, 2:57 PM
William said...: I'm sure the restaurant owner routinely puts in 12 to 14 hour workdays and makes far, far less than the Professor. Noblesse oblige. The professor should have presented his views in a more conciliatory and amiable manner. If the professor can't figure that out, I wonder what other things he can't figure out.; 12/19/14, 3:51 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: You can't overcharge. It's illegal. It' immoral.

Prof isn't the villain here. He was right.; 12/19/14, 3:53 PM
jimbino said...: If he'd just formulated his complaint in 95 theses that he nailed to the chapel door, he would be venerated for generations to come, and rightly so.

I'm with Edelman. We see a similar problem with bad English usage on the Web. All kinds of folks use "decimate" when they mean "devastate," for example. If nobody complains, others start to do the same thing; then the descriptivists over at Language Log do an Ngram search and start telling us that "decimate" for "devastate" is OK, since that is what the majority of people say. Before you know it, there is nothing left in English that is intelligible.

Like the "broken windows" policy, we need to adopt a "broken English" policy and nip bullshit in the bud, and what Edelman has done needs to be applauded. He has spent his own time and money doing for consumers what the gummint never does, and at no cost to us. He didn't pull a gun and didn't even file a lawsuit. He merely complained in the nicest way possible.

There's a lot more BS to be cleared out of the Augean stables of Amerika, like the stupidity of tipping in restaurants, and we need the dedication of folks like Edelman, who, unlike the dumb masses, is capable both of understanding the problem and of investing in a solution.; 12/19/14, 3:55 PM
Mary Beth said...: He didn't say that he "wanted the restaurant to refund all customers who had been overcharged." He said, "I have already referred this matter to applicable authorities in order to attempt to compel your restaurant to identify all consumers affected and to provide refunds to all of them."

I think there's a big difference.; 12/19/14, 3:58 PM
khesanh0802 said...: I read the e-mails. The evidence is overwhelming. The prof has indeed been "hoist with his own petard".; 12/19/14, 4:07 PM
FleetUSA said...: Keep digging. It isn't improving...; 12/19/14, 4:37 PM
mccullough said...: John Lynch,

No evidence anyone was overcharged, least of all this asshole. He ordered, paid the price on the receipt knowing how much it cost, and then ate his food.

If he didn't like the price charged he should have said no and not taken the food.

A few days later he checks out the website and sees that the prices listed on the website were lower. The website was out of date and there's no evidence any of the customers ever looked at it before ordering food.; 12/19/14, 4:42 PM
Meade said...: I think it's pretty clear the assholes are all on the other side.; 12/19/14, 5:38 PM
Brando said...: Yes, the emails were there to see, and yes, he did talk about refunding the other customers, but he still came across as an asshole in the emails, he is still a bullying douche and if he had any self awareness he'd hide in a cave forever.

I hope he is ostracized forever.; 12/19/14, 6:07 PM
Meade said...: Obviously, Boston.com and deputy editor Hilary Sargent's behaviors were assholian and Professor Edelman is indeed “a reasonably nice guy, trying to make the world a better place".; 12/19/14, 7:11 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Just one lone crusader fighting for justice against all the power and greed of Big Chinese Takeout.; 12/19/14, 7:36 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: A liberal douche gets mauled by The Daily Douche. Ho-frickety-hum.; 12/19/14, 7:45 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Sorry Meade. Normally I give your opinion a lot of weight, but you've already shown you're a sucker for a good-looking Law Prof.; 12/19/14, 7:52 PM
jr565 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/19/14, 8:51 PM
jr565 said...: "I love how he points out that the restaurant excluded price fixe in their deals with restaurant.com, but somehow wants to get them on the technicality that they didn't specifically say price fixe in this deal. It's alreadby been established by this guy himself that he knows they exclude it from web offerings. So then, why is he expecting it from web offerings?
The restaurant also said they told Groupon thwt the deal didn't include price fixe offerings, and when Edelman asked Groupon about it, they basically got very quiet. So, if anyone is at fault it's Groupon, not the restaurant. Let groupon honor this guys stupid request.; 12/19/14, 8:53 PM
MisterBuddwing said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/19/14, 8:53 PM
Bob Ellison said...: The adjective form is "assholic".; 12/19/14, 9:19 PM
lonetown said...: The truth put on its boots and kicked Edelman right innthe ass.; 12/19/14, 11:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Mccullough, thanks for causing me to dig a little deeper.

I now think this is not a case of a reporter presenting only part of story but instead a case of a reporter attacking the subject of a story. Did you read about the crudely-worded tee shirts the reporter offered for sale? Her employer thought that was not appropriate.

Edelman has apologized to the restaurant owner and Harvard students have used the publicity to raise money for a food bank.

It looks like the reporter is the one who is the uncivilized one in this story.; 12/20/14, 3:44 AM
tim maguire said...: John Lynch said...
You can't overcharge. It's illegal. It' immoral.

Prof isn't the villain here. He was right.

It does seem people here are attached to the "good guy/bad guy" routine and, having identified Edelman as an asshole, need to label the restaurant as the poor put-upon victim.

Well, he is an asshole. And the restaurant was ripping off its customers (sorry McCullough, that's not a debating point--they were advertising one price and charging another).

They both suck, but the one your all hating on is in the right.; 12/20/14, 4:47 AM
Gahrie said...: Look, no one is saying that the asshole didn't have the right to complain.

What we are saying is that he overreacted and bullied the restaraunt owner.

And it is apparently a pattern.; 12/20/14, 6:15 AM
Jaq said...: @jimbino

The word "corporatist" is the one that steams my onions. We can't use the word "fascist" to describe Obama's policies, Godwin,you know and everybody tunes it out. So try to use the proper political/economic term "corporatism" and it turns out that that word too is gone, hijacked by "occupyers" who think it means rule by corporations. It is a kind of Newspeak where we can't name the politics being shoved on us because the words to describe it are gone.; 12/20/14, 6:28 AM
FedkaTheConvict said...: The only good thing in my opinion is that its good to see two newspapers competing and holding each other accountable. The Boston.com reporter might have gone overboard but we would never have known it without the reporting from the Boston Herald.; 12/20/14, 8:44 AM
traditionalguy said...: OMG. The Vigilante Professors are riding tonight. Hang em high you noble masked professors.; 12/20/14, 9:34 AM
Meade said...: I'm liberally agnostic to the question of whether Professor Edelman is assholic or not. It does not matter.

But the conservative in me is sympathetic to the people of Massachusetts who created a law to protect their property rights from businesses that falsely charge for goods and services AND are given power to collect — on behalf of the state — taxes as a percentage of that fraudulent income.

Massachusites should refuse to pay that tax. Hey, I know — they could call themselves "Tea Partiers"!!!; 12/20/14, 10:03 AM
SeanF said...: jimbino: We see a similar problem with bad English usage on the Web. All kinds of folks use "decimate" when they mean "devastate," for example. If nobody complains, others start to do the same thing; then the descriptivists over at Language Log do an Ngram search and start telling us that "decimate" for "devastate" is OK, since that is what the majority of people say. Before you know it, there is nothing left in English that is intelligible.

Right complaint, wrong example. "Decimate" has been used to mean "destroy a significant (but not necessarly 10%) portion of something" for several hundred years. That battle was lost a long time ago.

(Counter-example: "Nice" also came from Latin. It originally meant "ignorant." Using "nice" to mean "pleasant" is of more recent vintage than using "decimate" to mean "devastate." Is it wrong?); 12/22/14, 11:18 AM