I’ve Been Sent to Ohio to Research People Eating Cats, for Some Reason

Why is this a story?

Built from photos by Google Maps, Diana Huggins (cat), and Marcus Aurelius (Jacob Fuzetti).

The presidential election may hinge on whether Haitian immigrants in Ohio have eaten cats. Former President Trump repeated the rumor in last week’s debate, and the subsequent days have seen an intense discussion among influencers and journalists about whether there’s any validity to the rumors whatsoever. And now, I’ve been drawn into the kerfuffle; I write to you from a hotel room in Hamilton, Ohio, where I sit confused, defeated, and more than a little depressed about the state of journalism and my life.

This assignment is partly my fault. I’ve been begging I Might Be Wrong editor Jeff Maurer to let me write about the election; he usually assigns me to pop culture nonsense and Gen Z fluff that makes me wish I didn’t view retirement as a grim prison in which I will await my death. I was excited when Jeff came to me and said “J-Fuzz — you down for some of that in-person reporting that you never shut the fuck up about?” But then I learned that he was going to send me to Ohio to investigate cat-eating, which somehow felt more degrading than the time he assigned me to talk about the news with what appeared to be an AI bot trained on porn.

“What does cat-eating have to do with who should be president?” I asked.

“Everyone’s talking about it,” Jeff replied.

“But isn’t it a red herring?” I said.

“Cats,” Jeff replied, “not fish.”

I spent the next ten minutes explaining to Jeff that “red herring” is just an expression. Then, I argued that the cat-eating “story” wasn’t a story; it could never be disproven, and given that there’s clearly no widespread trend of cat-eating, even if some immigrant somewhere had eaten a cat, it would tell us nothing about the foreign-born population, which is roughly 50 million people. But Jeff just kept saying “shit’s blowin’ up” and showing me viral tweets about cat-eating, and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Cincinnati.

I didn’t know what to do when I arrived. I interviewed some Haitian immigrants at a local church, and I talked to some native-born Ohioans at a restaurant, but those conversations didn’t yield anything newsworthy. Nobody knew anything about eating cats — I was honestly embarrassed to raise the subject. I’m used to asking tough questions — I asked Erich Honecker if East Germany was insolvent, and I asked Moammar Gaddafi if he was pursuing nuclear weapons. But I could barely get the words out when it came time to ask a 60 year-old daycare worker in a sweatshirt with puff-paint butterflies on it whether she had ever eaten anyone’s pet.

“Find the guy who made the video,” Jeff told me. He was referring to a viral video that showed animals that may or may not have been cats on a barbecue outside an apartment that allegedly house several African families. I told Jeff: “I thought this was about Haitians.” “Right,” Jeff said, “they were from Africa.” “Yes, Africa,” I said, “not Haiti.” A 30-minute argument ensued about whether or not Haiti is in Africa. Incredibly, I managed to lose that argument. Then, I lost an argument about whether a video taken in Dayton in 2023 could be used to verify claims about events in Springfield in 2024. Jeff won those arguments the way he wins every argument: He said “if you won’t do it, we’ll call this off, and you can go home and listen to the sound of your own breath echoing off the walls in your empty house for the rest of your life.”

At my deadline, I filed a story titled “Ambiguous Claims Muddy Debate in Town Where Opinions Vary”. Jeff didn’t publish it, calling it “the boring-est shit since George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky.” Discouraged, I retreated to my hotel room, turned off the light, and ate the rest of a sandwich I had bought at the airport.

But then, I had a brain flash: Maybe the missing element in the story was somewhere else in Ohio. Inspired, I got in my rental car and headed three-and-a-half hours north to Oberlin, Ohio.

Oberlin is home to an old friend of mine: Azita Majidi, a former reporter from the BBC World Service. She’s now retired and living in Ohio with her husband Tom, a professor at Oberlin College. Azita and I were stationed together in the Balkans in the late ‘90s, and we shared a love that was as uncontainable as the conflict itself. Azita also covered the overthrow of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in Haiti, which made her something of an expert on Haitian culture — I could interview her for my piece. It was not a stretch to interview her. It wasn’t — I was seeing her for business, nothing more. I repeated that to myself over and over on my drive north.

In Oberlin, I searched places where I thought I might find her — a bookstore, an art gallery, a quiet gazebo in the park. I finally found her at a creperie in the heart of town, sitting by herself and reading a dog-eared copy of Vaclav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless. “Azita!” I cried. She looked up from her book; I could tell she was surprised to see me. “Are you still married to that mega-dildo Tom?” I asked. But I was joking — totally joking. And I told her that, right away, several times. Because Tom’s great — totally swell guy, I love Tom. I was joking.

I ordered myself a cup of coffee, and we talked. Azita declined to be interviewed for the story — “One trip to Haiti 30 years ago doesn’t make me an expert,” she said. God she’s such a pro. She makes the so-called “reporters” these days seem like a bunch of chimps jerking each other off at the zoo. We shared memories — I did most of the talking — and I suggested that we get some wine, but she reminded me that I was on the clock. She’s such a pro — I’m sure she would have gotten wine if I hadn’t been working on a story. She definitely would have; she was looking out for me.

In fact, she was looking out for me so much that she repeatedly said that she didn’t want to keep me from my story. When I suggested that we could co-write it, she said “I don’t want to steal your byline. It was good to see you, Jacob.” So: She thought it was good to see me, which feels nice. I started to leave, but then turned around and asked: “If I had asked you to marry me when we were in the Balkans, would you have said yes?” Azita looked out the window. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked back and said: “That’s a hypothetical, Jacob. And journalists don’t traffic in hypotheticals.” Which is correct, of course. God, she’s such a pro.

In conclusion: There is no evidence that Haitians in Ohio are eating cats. Trump’s claims remain unsubstantiated, and, moreover, ancillary to thoughtful discussions of immigration. The opinions of Ohioans are mixed; some support immigration, some oppose it, and some think you should e-mail instead of tracking them down in a creperie. I have reported this story to its fullest extent. Hopefully, that will convince Jeff to let me do more on-the-ground reporting, especially in Northern Ohio.

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