After spending three weeks acting as if the story had never aired, WCCO quietly issued an “Editor’s Note” last week about its notorious Chinatown dog meat story.

Here’s the note, which was posted to the station’s website…

On Oct. 31, WCCO aired a story during our 10 p.m. news about a dog breeder who was found to have sold nearly 1,400 dogs after her USDA license to sell was terminated in August 2010.

While investigating where those dogs ended up, we discovered an address where, on 12 separate occasions over a period of approximately a year, a total of 168 dogs were shipped. At that address in New York, we found two business establishments including a market. During our visit we found no evidence of the dogs.

When we called the market, the person we spoke to said he didn’t speak English but then gave an interview in English. We asked him if the market sold dogs, and we believed he answered in the affirmative. We now believe he said duck.

The editor’s note came a day after TVSpy posted video of the story, which the station had attempted to scrub from the internet.

As far as we can tell, WCCO has not read this or any other statement about the incident on-air.

[h/t NewsBlues]