A deputy chief editor of Chinese nationalistic tabloid Global Times has come under the media spotlight after filing a complaint against her superior over extramarital affairs.

Maggie Duan accused her boss, chief editor Hu Xijin, of fathering two sons from affairs he had with colleagues in the newsroom, in a complaint to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the top disciplinary body of China’s Communist Party. Hu has denied the claims and reported the incident to Global Times and People’s Daily officials for an internal investigation.

Unlike Hu, who is known for outspoken remarks on social media, Duan has mostly stayed away from the spotlight, having accepted only a handful of interviews over the years.

She started out as an intern at state-owned China Central Television before moving in the 1990s to Global Times, which at that time was fairly new and had just 10 staff, according to a profile of her published by China Youth Daily in 2012.

“From editing and translating articles, to drawing the pages and arranging the layouts, I had to do them all by myself,” Duan was quoted as saying. Three years later, at 25 years old, she requested to transfer to the marketing team, not wanting to only translate articles.

Duan surpassed all her performance goals in a year and helped the company rake in advertisements worth 200 million yuan (US$30.5 million) in 2004, China Youth Daily said.

In another interview, given in 2005, she said: “I feel like any media should speak up for its own country.”

Hu alleged that Duan had threatened to report him to the commission and demanded he resign because she was made to believe she would be promoted to his position.

Duan had not been involved in the newspaper’s work for some time because of a “loss of normal working capability,” he said.

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