Dirty Dining

Quick hit only. The Dirty Dining segments on Journal Communications' TMJ4 I see a problem, big surpise.

They have had a few segments on successful, landmark restaurants, owned by white people, located in the suburbs or in nice downtown locations, where the restaurant's "executive chef" or owner has come on and said all the right things. This problem here was a short-term anomaly. That one we've fixed. This one was not as bad as it sounds. We're glad to find out about this problem so we can fix it. We strive for perfection, but it's hard to keep on top of everything. That's why we welcome the health department reports to let us know where to focus our continuing efforts so our diners can have confidence. All of these problems merit our attention and are being addressed, but none had progressed to the point of affecting our customers, and we're thankful for that.

The problem I see is that some of these responses would be applicable to most of the establishments who are covered in these segments. This diminishes the force of all of them, but that's not the problem. The problem is that when the target is some minority-owned small Indian or Mexican restaurant or fried chicken franchise, and the owners don't put up sophisticated damage control, the news media takes advantage of the bad response, lets them ignore their defenses, does not give any caviats, and sensationalizes the problems.

This is a direct cognate of the problem in the legal system where some criminally accused get ineffective counsel, the prosecution unethically pushes the advantage, and the judge allows it. There is a difference in that the media in cases like this plays the prosecutor while pretending to be a neutral investigator. The end result is racist, classist, and just plain unfair, and it misleads viewers and harms the community.

Thanks again, JCI.