J. D. Prose – 12/19/09

This page was last updated on December 20, 2009.

No comparison between Ramaley and Veon cases; J. D. Prose; Beaver County Times; December 19, 2009.

As you read this opinion column, keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the Times. In addition to being an entertainer/pundit, Mr. Prose is a reporter covering political stories. Ask yourself this. When a pundit gives his political opinions in one part of the paper, can he be trusted to report politics objectively elsewhere in the paper? After all, would a person whose opinion is 1+1 equals 3 report 1+1 really equals 2? Does he have a “Chinese wall” in his head to keep his opinions from bleeding into his reporting? If it can get worse than that, Mr. Prose has made name-calling and personal attacks a foundation of his columns. If pushed, I’d be willing to bet Mr. Prose would try to excuse his writing by claiming he’s paid to be controversial and stir debate. The problem is, you don’t need to get into name-calling and personal attacks to accomplish those goals.

You can find the archive of my Prose column critiques here.

The final section of the column (“progs rock”) appears to be a continuation of “Altmire’s vote: Bad medicine, smart politics.” As I noted in that critique, “It’s funny how things change. Just over two years ago Mr. Prose used the Altmire office as his sole source for some topics. Now Mr. Prose ‘purposely avoided calling him.’” It’s progressed (deteriorated?) to the point Mr. Prose is now using a local lefty website as a news source, and in the process giving it free advertising. Here is the entire Beaver County Blue article to which Mr. Prose referred. For some reason, Mr. Prose failed to note Mr. Shannon and BCB are also upset with Mr. Altmire (“Jason Altmire’s Shameful Vote Against our Constitution”) because he voted to withhold tax dollars from ACORN.