The idea that "is sometimes an asshole" means "is a bad person" is flat-out wrong, and is a big part of what is wrong with the internet: you get a short, context-free soundbite of something that may or may not have actually happened, and that's it for someone's career and life's work.
I read all four parts of his story, and found it riveting. Life is in the details. But those details are too boring and don't generate clicks and ad impressions, so the vast majority of the people who hear about this will only know "a NY Times reporter was fired for saying the n-word to kids in Peru, supporting colonialism, claiming white privilege doesn't exist, and getting his photo taken with naked underage girls", and will immediately assume the guy is a racist, perverted piece of garbage, and never know that they're being lied to.
I think your and my definition of bad differ. Bad to me means being directly significantly detrimental to others who were not doing bad to you.
In his own words, he is an asshole some of the time
>> Am I really an asshole? I don’t think so. Not most of the time.
Many of us have worked with men like this and they're awful.
I mean, this example was pretty poor because it combines him being an asshole and his interpretation of the word "drug", Dictionaries disagree with him.
>> Now, there is an exception: if you’re an editor and you write an error into my copy, I can definitely be an asshole.
[...]
>> To give an example: an editor once went through a story of mine and changed all the references to vaccines to “drugs.”
>> I went over and said, “Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Vaccines and drugs are different. A vaccine is something you take to prevent illness. A drug is something you take when you’re already ill.”
Chambers:
> 1. Any substance used in the composition of medicine to cure, diagnose or prevent disease
Mirriam Webster:
> b: a substance used as a medication or in the preparation of medication c according to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1) : a substance recognized in an official pharmacopoeia or formulary (2) : a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease (3) : a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body (4) : a substance intended for use as a component of a medicine but not a device or a component, part, or accessory of a device