J.D. Prose – 10/8/11

This page was last updated on October 9, 2011.

Conforti sticks to the truth -- but which version?; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; October 8, 2011.

As you read this opinion column and his Twitter “tweets,” keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the BCT. In addition to being an entertainer/pundit, Mr. Prose is a part-time 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? (You may recall NPR claimed it fired Juan Williams for doing exactly what Mr. Prose does.) 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.

Below is a detailed critique of portions of this column.

I don’t care about the column’s subject. This critique is only about some stuff I found humorous.

Is the BCT’s demise closer than I thought? I ask because it appears Mr. Prose may be auditioning to change the Beaver Countian from a one-man-band into a two-men-band. This is the second time within a week Mr. Prose referred to John Paul, the Beaver Countian’s “citizen journalist.” It could be a good fit given both the BCT and the Beaver Countian are lefty publications. Further, as Mr. Prose, Mr. Paul refers to himself as “we” so their writing styles are consistent. Even their initials are nearly the same. Beaver County Reds would also be a good fit for Mr. Prose, but I don’t believe that would be a paying job.

Mr. Prose wrote, “We don’t mind being attacked, hell, we’re surprised when we’re not, but don’t question our accuracy.” I always get a kick out of flamethrowers and name-callers complaining about “being attacked.” I wonder if Mr. Prose learned this from fellow BCT pundit Gino Piroli or grew into it on his own. For folks like Messrs. Piroli and Prose, it’s an attack when you defend yourself against their name-calling, smears, et cetera. I think most of the rest of us refer to that as a counterattack or defending yourself. As for “don’t question our accuracy,” it’s especially funny coming from a pundit who subs as a “news reporter” for the “12 alive – only 1 trapped miner doesn’t survive ordeal” BCT.

Mr. Prose wrote, “Conforti is disingenuous.” This could be the pot calling the kettle black. Mr. Prose himself is disingenuous by pretending he doesn’t know the origin of the term “teabagger.”

Mr. Prose wrote, “we’d love the Teabaggers to stop being selfish, hateful, fanatical theocrats hell-bent on destroying the country.” Didn’t Mr. Prose write “don’t question our accuracy?” You’ll note it’s been about a month since the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd started demonstrating and as far as I can tell Mr. Prose still hasn’t written anything in support of his fellow travelers. This could be a problem for Mr. Prose, however. Since the tea party movement started, lefties have smeared tea partiers as Mr. Prose did above and in previous columns. During the past week, however, some lefties started trying to compare the OWS gangs with tea partiers. That the tea party movement and the OWS gangs have nothing in common doesn’t matter. It’s similar to lefties bashing Ronald Reagan non-stop then trying to equate themselves with him when convenient.