J.D. Prose – 7/21/12

This page was last updated on July 27, 2012.

Save the chain emails for someone who cares; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; July 21, 2012.

According to his Twitter page, Mr. Prose is a self-described “Surly progressive.” 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.

Mr. Prose spends the first six paragraphs whining about “hateful emails” when he isn’t engaged in his own name-calling. In a previous critique I wrote, “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.”

Regarding the “the Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania (conservationpa.org) report card on ‘key’ Marcellus shale votes in the 2011-12 session,” note Mr. Prose described votes the CVPA wanted as “pro-environment,” adopting the language of CVPA. If you vote the way CVPA wants, you “supported clean air, water and energy.” Otherwise you’re a “polluter.”

Given the questionable “news” sources used by Mr. Prose and the BCT, that he didn’t tell us anything about CVPA should be a red flag.