Times Blog rips off Food Not Bombs

(first image is the Times’ the second is Food Not Bombs)

The New York Times heralded the inauguration of their new Mark Bittman-penned blog about food, “Bitten,” on Feb. 6 by splashing a link to it on the homepage of its Web site. It would be hard for a member of any of the Food Not Bombs autonomous collectives scattered throughout the world not to notice a striking similarity between the Bitten logo and their own: both feature an up-raised fist clutching at a carrot.

It seems unlikely that Bittman, a well-regarded cookbook author and cooking show host, would have had any significant knowledge of the logo pilfering. A more likely scenario would involve a sticky-fingered freelance designer, or one from the Times’ own stable, playing fast and loose with design ethics. But it still would be hard for the Times to claim total ignorance; a “Food Not Bombs” search of their archives yielded 22 results, the oldest dating back to September 6, 1988. The Indypendent sent an e-mail to Clark Hoyt, the Times’ public editor, requesting his opinion on the matter. We’ll let you know what we hear.

Written by Rahul Chadha