Nutrition Expert Marion Nestle Surprised To Find Her Byline On The Huffington Post [UPDATE]

Update: Nestle has written a new post explaining the mix-up and offering an apology on her part:

The mysterious ghostwriting episode I discussed earlier today (see below) is now explained. Apologies to the Huffington Post.

I received a flurry of messages in response to the post, including an apology from Linda Gibbs, Deputy NYC Mayor for Health and Human Services. She reminds me that we spoke months ago (early May, as it turns out) about my willingness to edit and sign an op-ed about the proposed SNAP ban prepared by her staff that was to be submitted to the New York Times.

I vaguely remember reviewing such a piece and approving its submission. When I heard that the Times had rejected the piece, I promptly forgot about it.

As far as I can tell from reviewing my sent and deleted messages from Linda Gibbs, none mentioned co-authorship with Geoffrey Canada, and the piece submitted to and published in the Huffington Post does not mention the involvement of the NYC health department.

The press director for Harlem Children’s Zone tells me that the piece was later submitted to two other publications that also turned it down. I was not cc’d on either of those submissions or on the one to the Huffington Post.

Hence my confusion.

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Nutrition expert and Food Politics writer Marion Nestle was surprised to see her name included in the byline of a recent Huffington Post article titled “NYC’s SNAP Sugary Beverage Ban Is the Right Idea.” While the article — described as being co-authored with Geoffrey Canada, President and Chief Executive Officer of Harlem Children’s Zone — reflected Nestle’s views on nutrition, she insists she never wrote it, nor has she ever met Mr. Canada.

She took to her blog to muse about her name’s inclusion in the HuffPost piece:

A colleague congratulated me yesterday on my Huffington Post article—co-authored with Harlem Children’s Zone’s Geoffrey Canada—on SNAP (food stamp) benefits and sodas.

I was amazed to see it. I don’t recall writing it and I don’t believe I have ever met Mr. Canada, although I would be delighted to do so. The article does indeed reflect my views but does not read like something I wrote.

So I guess thanks are do [sic] to Mr. Canada or to the ghostwriter. If anyone knows the story behind this, please tell!

We reached out to Mario Ruiz, Huffington Post / Aol VP of Communications, who helpfully cleared things up:

The post was submitted to us by Marty Lipp, Communications Director of the Harlem Children’s Zone, as a piece co-authored by Geoffrey Canada and Marion Nestle, and was published Friday. Dr. Nestle subsequently informed us that she had not, in fact, co-written the post, so her name has been removed.

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