Perkins, Dirty Dining, and TMJ4, Part Deux

UPDATE, January 9, 2009: TMJ4 posts the January 8, 2009 "Dirty Dining" segment on its website. The page was updated quickly.

The Perkins story? Still not there.
________________

Back on December 17, 2008, I raised an issue about TMJ4's weekly segment "Dining Dirty."

Here is the original post:

Last Thursday, December 11, 2008, TMJ4's Courtny Gerrish did a "Dirty Dining" segment on the Perkins Family Restaurant in Brookfield.

You wouldn't know that report aired if you went to TMJ4's website. It's been scrubbed.

No video. No written report.



Why?

Is it just an oversight, an innocent mistake?

Thanks to Google's cache, the report lives.

This is Google's cache of http://www.todaystmj4.com/features/dirtydinning/36018029.html. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Dec 12, 2008 05:55:49 GMT.

BROOKFIELD - A family restaurant not keeping food cold enough. Perkins on Barker Road and Bluemound.

An employee was cracking eggs and then touching customer's food, all without changing gloves. A cross contamination risk. When we stopped by the manager wasn't talking. "You don't want to comment?" "Not really."

Inspectors had issues with food temperature. Meatloaf and sausage were at 45 degrees. Rice was kept at 47 degrees. The safe cold temperature is 41. Also, inspectors found a cooler as warm as 47 degrees, and Hash browns were sitting out at room temperature.

Children's drink cups used as scoops, sitting in food. Perkins was ordered to use a scoop with a handle, so employees don't put their hands in the food. Also, there were open bags of flour stored on the floor. Dry goods must be sealed in a container and kept off the floor.

The manager did tell us Perkins was cleaning things up.

That's not good.

The "Dirty Dining" segments never are. I think of the reports as a public service.

So why is the Brookfield Perkins being spared by TMJ4?

Where's the report? Where's the video? Not readily available on its website.

The "Dirty Dining" page has links to other restaurants that have been highlighted by TMJ4 for breaking health codes. Those remain.

What's the deal?

I contacted TMJ4 about the weird disappearance of the Perkins page -- twice.

My first e-mail received no response from TMJ4. I sent it on December 22. With the holidays, I wasn't surprised that replying to viewer feedback wasn't a high priority. So, I sent a second e-mail on January 2, 2009.

Here's a portion of the second e-mail that I sent to TMJ4:

Why did you remove that particular "Dirty Dining" story from your website?

It's a glaring omission since links to the past weekly segments are readily available on your site in chronological order. Even segments from years ago can be found on your site using your own search function.

It seems unfair that your reports exposing the violations of other restaurants can be found yet your recent report on the Brookfield Perkins is not available.

Please explain the reason for posting the Perkins "Dirty Dining" story on your website and its subsequent removal.

On January 5, I heard back from TMJ4.

Although I received no explanation regarding the reason that the TMJ4 website had been scrubbed, I was told that the news assignment desk was working on putting the Perkins story back on the "Dirty Dining" page.

Apparently, they weren't aware that the story had been removed.

Huh? OK.

I don't know how a story that had been posted could be inadvertently deleted, but obviously someone working on the TMJ4 website did remove the Perkins story and no one connected to "Dirty Dining" noticed. It's very strange, but strange things happen and innocent mistakes are made.

The Brookfield Perkins really lucked out. Of course, the other restaurants with health code violations weren't so lucky.

As of this evening, the news assignment desk must still be hard at work trying to get that Perkins story back online, because it's not there yet.

The "Dirty Dining" page has not been updated at all since Christmas. However, when it is updated, I assume that the Perkins story, originally posted December 11, 2008, will be back.

If the TMJ4 news assignment desk needs assistance retrieving the story, it can find it right here.