OPINION Poor journalism revitalizes Chinese stereotypes: WCCO’s duck/dog mix-up

By Anthony James, Staff Writer

First, let me state the following: I don't think WCCO's news team or Jason Schugel are racists.

But if you were able to catch the story, which no longer exists on the WCCO Web page (but has been recovered on City Pages and various blogs), I hope you might be able to catch why there are so many readers and journalists angry with WCCO's news team. The Asian American Journalists Association has asked for an apology, City Pages published that "heads will roll" according to an inside source, tons of angry comments circled the internet.

On Oct. 31, 2011 WCCO released an I-Team report, headed by James Schugel, which claimed that a dog breeder in rural Minnesota was selling her pups to a New York City address. Upon looking up the address, Schugel reported that the address belonged to a Chinese market. After one phone call, Schugel's conversation with a thick accented meat worker implied that the store did sell dog meat. The story prompted a police raid, which eventually had WCCO quickly covering up the report on their Web site after the raid recovered no dog meat.

The New York Post picked up the pieces on the very next Friday, Nov. 4; the worker misheard Schugel. The word "dog" which (surprise) no Asian American meat market would sell, was misheard for "duck" which can be seen hanging from most every Chinese meat market from New York to San Francisco. The dog breeder from Minnesota, who has been rightfully charged for selling sick dogs to pet stores, solved the mix-up by noting that she put the wrong address on the travel certificate.

We go around in circles on journalism standards: how the police raid and taxpayer dollars could have been saved by a simple clarification, how checking your sources rather than relying on one phone conversation with someone whose commonly used language is not English should not pass as damning evidence.

What irks me the most is how little we realize how such a story is capable of opening a can of worms we thought was longed buried. There would be those who stand with WCCO, claiming that the story was a legitimate concern with a slight gaff.

Slight gaff? When I still hear my fellow students, coworkers, and neighbors remarking how Asians will steal your pets? When we still live in communities that have no clue about Asian American culture? It doesn't seem like Schugel or the news director that gave the report the green light had the Asian American community in mind when they carelessly released the story.

It wouldn't be fair to suggest that James Schugel and the WCCO news team are racists, but the evidence that we live in a society that hasn't moved beyond racial insensitivity is still apparent. Take as an example the survey data release from the Bullying Prevention Summit that showed that Asian American teens are the most bullied out of all ethnic groups, take the surly profanity-laden voicemail to Hmong city council candidate Bee Kevin Xiong, take any of the numerable instances in television and advertising which utilize some sort of Asian stereotype.

Schugel's news report falsely accusing Asian Americans of selling dog meat only adds fuel to xenophobia, racism, and anti-Asian ideas in our communities. The story may not have been meant as a direct attack on Chinese or a minority in general, but such lack of journalistic standards will certainly create a paradigm in the minds of those who may not know better.

We depend on news for our information; we depend on journalistic standards to objectively bring that information with little bias or misunderstanding. When we fail as a community to fairly judge our neighbors' moral and cultural values based on misinformation we fail to be a community. Asian Americans are still fighting stereotypes and generalizations all across the United States; such poor journalism should be more than unwelcome.