NYT Magazine's Lynn Hirschberg sparked a feud with hip-hop artist M.I.A (aka Maya Arulpragasam) in a scathing cover story:
In the press, Maya was labeled a terrorist sympathizer by some; others charged her with being unsophisticated about the politics of Sri Lanka. “People in exile tend to be more nationalistic,” [Ahilan Kadirgamar at Sri Lanka Democracy Forum] said. “And Maya took a very simplistic explanation of the problems between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese government and the Tamils. It’s very unfair when you condemn one side of this conflict. The Tigers were killing people, and the government was killing people. It was a brutal war, and M.I.A. had a role in putting the Tigers on the map. She doesn’t seem to know the complexity of what these groups do.”
Ackerman plucks out the more provocative passages. M.I.A. retaliated by tweeting Hirschberg's cell phone number, which the writer called "infuriating" but not surprising. And the rapper has already come out with a song about the spat.