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It’s always sunny in a Fox News studio -- and Germany; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; February 10, 2013.
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 critique of portions of this column.
“Today we’re going to check in with our favorite laughingstock network, Faux News. Oops. Sorry. Bad habit. We mean, Fox News Channel. Remember them? Yeah, they’re still around spouting their nonsense.
“First, FNC said goodbye to has-been Gov. Hockey Mom, Sarah Palin, and then it jettisoned political consultant joker Dick Morris, who famously predicted a Mitt Romney landslide in November. Over and over and over.”
[RWC] FYI, lefty darling former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) now works for the evil empire (FNC) as a contributor. That’s less than a month after Al Gore (manmade global warming’s evangelist-in-chief) sold out to oil-producer Qatar. “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.” – James Carville, January 1996.
“Now, Morris is completely disreputable, but he shouldn’t really be blamed for his unabashed cheerleading, should he? There was a virtual bubble over the FNC studios last year rebuffing all logic and common sense, which, come to think of it, is pretty much how they operate all the time anyway.”
[RWC] I’m sure it was an honest oversight, but Mr. Prose failed to mention Mr. Morris was a long-time consultant for then-Gov. and President Bill Clinton.
“That leads us to a Public Policy Poll in which FNC’s credibility was shown to have fallen 9 percentage points in three years. PPP said 46 percent of respondents do not trust FNC, up from 37 percent in 2010.”
[RWC] According to Wikipedia, PPP “is labeled as a Democratic firm because in its private client work, it conducts polls only for Democratic campaigns and progressive [leftist] organizations.” I’m sure Mr. Prose meant to clue his readers in about PPP but ran out of space. <g> That PPP is a Democrat firm doesn’t make its results wrong, but its political leaning should be noted when citing its results.
“Hmmmm. Wonder why.
“Oddly, FNC is at the same time the most trusted with 34 percent making that claim. Of course, PPP found that Republicans don’t trust any other network, BUT FNC, so take that for what it’s worth.”
[RWC] Regardless of the source of a story and whether or not it supports my beliefs, I tend to say to myself, “I wonder if that’s true.” If the story concerns something I care about, I perform my own independent research.
Now let’s look at a few poll tidbits Mr. Prose omitted.
The poll asked about trust in two different ways. First, the poll asked “Do you trust ______, or not?” for ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Comedy Central (Yes, really.), Fox News, MSNBC, NBC News, and PBS. With this question, PBS came in first at 52% and FNC was second at 41%. Just another honest omission by Mr. Prose, I’m sure.
With this question, the “Do not trust it” percentages mostly ranged from 42% (ABC & NBC) to 46% (Comedy Central & Fox News). The exception was PBS at 29%. Together with the previous omission, by omitting the “Do not trust it” percentages for everyone except FNC, Mr. Prose intentionally gave the false impression FNC was far less trusted than the other guys when in fact FNC came in second only to PBS. (Note: That anyone would trust a government-subsidized “news” outlet is beyond me, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
The second way the poll asked about trust was “Which TV news outlet do you trust the most: ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Comedy Central, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC News, or PBS?” While Mr. Prose correctly noted “FNC is … the most trusted with 34 percent,” he failed to mention no other TV news outlet came close. According to PPP, after FNC at 34% we have “13% for PBS, 12% for CNN, 11% for ABC, 8% for MSNBC, 6% for CBS, and 5% each for Comedy Central and NBC.” If Mr. Prose had given it some thought, he could have explained away this outcome by claiming lefties had their votes spread over seven news outlets while non-leftists had only one choice, FNC. In doing so, however, Mr. Prose would have to concede left-leaning news outlets greatly outnumber non-leftist outlets and that’s not an admission lefties like to make.
While Mr. Prose wrote “PPP found that Republicans don’t trust any other network, BUT FNC,” he failed to note the reverse is true for Democrats. According to PPP, “We find once again this year that Democrats trust everything except Fox.” The purpose of omitting the Democrat entrenchment against FNC was to get readers to believe Republican entrenchment for FNC skewed the “most trusted” result. These “honest” omissions by Mr. Prose are starting to build up, aren’t they?
Mr. Prose didn’t tell us how many people trust the BCT. “Hmmmm. Wonder why.”
“Facts never really get in the way of a good spin job at FNC, but just this past week things hilariously spun out of control. Bill O’Reilly decided to attack NBC for ignoring the Obama administration’s drone-killing program even though NBC sort of BROKE THE STORY. Yeah.”
[RWC] As you read this and the following six paragraphs, think about what topics Mr. Prose dodges.
“The Huffington Post recounted how O’Reilly huffed and puffed and tried to spin-spin-spin, but the videotape doesn’t lie. ‘Heard anything on NBC about the drones? ... You haven’t heard anything over there about this, neither have I, neither has my staff ... we heard a lot about waterboarding, but nothing about drone strikes,’ said O’Reilly, according to HuffPo’s Jack Mirkinson. Awkward.”
[RWC] So, is Mr. Prose claiming NBC is going after President Obama for unilaterally issuing kill orders the way it – and the rest of the mainstream media – went after then-President George W. Bush about water-boarding (which didn’t injure or kill anyone)?
“Even worse was a segment on the vacuous Fox & Friends that tried to discredit Obama’s subsidy programs for solar energy. And, which country with a blossoming solar sector do you think they picked to compare with the good ol’ US of A’s supposedly failed efforts?”
[RWC] It doesn’t take much “to discredit Obama’s subsidy programs for solar energy.”
“Why, sunny Germany, of course. Slate’s Will Oremus wrote that Fox Business reporter Shibani Joshi theorized that the reason behind Germany’s success wasn’t government investment, but Germany’s abundance of sunshine. Seriously.
“‘They’re a smaller country, and they’ve got lots of sun. Right? They’ve got a lot more sun than we do,’ Joshi said. Right, ‘business reporter.’ Germany’s practically the Florida of central Europe.”
[RWC] Given his body-of-work, it takes chutzpah for a pundit who moonlights as a “political reporter” like Mr. Prose to refer to someone else as a “business reporter.”
“What’s that? Joshi’s answer is absolute gibberish. Wow. Who woulda thunk it? Oremus talked to a real live scientist, you know, the kind of expert FNC hates, and was told that Germany’s ‘solar resource’ is comparable to Alaska’s. Yep. Alaska.”
[RWC] Mr. Prose failed to note Will Oremus is a white male, like Mr. Prose? Since Ms. Joshi is a “woman of color,” her parents are immigrants, and she’s the mother of two, isn’t attacking her racist, anti-immigrant, and part of the “war on women?” I’m kidding, of course, but what makes it funny is you would not be surprised to read something like that in a Prose column. Oh wait, we already did, and more than once. Since his first column after Mr. Obama’s 2008 election, Mr. Prose has deemed opposition to Mr. Obama’s policies and programs to be racism.
The comment “that Germany’s ‘solar resource’ is comparable to Alaska’s” appears to be in error. The comment should have read, “Germany’s ‘solar resource’ RANGE is comparable to Alaska’s.” Further, there’s no mention more of Germany’s solar resource is at the low end of the range. According to the “2010 Solar Technologies Market Report” issued by the “real live scientist’s” employer, “Germany’s solar resource has about the same range as Alaska’s, at about 1,000-1,500 kWh/m2/year, but more of Germany’s resource is at the lower end of that range.” Germany is only about one-fifth the size of Alaska. I’m not an expert in this field and I don’t have all the info needed to make an informed analysis, but at first glance it appears pushing PV solar in Germany is like pounding a square peg into a round hole. There’s more on this below.
“In fairness, Joshi was appearing on Fox & Friends so it’d be news if they actually didn’t screw something up. Fair and balanced!”
[RWC] Mr. Prose failed to mention Ms. Joshi acknowledged her error. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Mr. Prose to acknowledge his “errors.”
Did you identify the real topics Mr. Prose dodged in the previous seven paragraphs? First, by focusing on Bill O’Reilly’s apparent faux pas, Mr. Prose ducked any discussion of the real issue, the “Obama administration’s drone-killing program.”
Second, by focusing on Ms. Joshi’s error and mocking her, Mr. Prose ducked discussion of what constitutes “success” regarding solar energy. You’ll find “success” is defined solely by the capacity of installed PV panels. Even Ms. Joshi appeared to buy into this definition. The cost of taxpayer subsidies for the PV-generated electricity is not considered. According to Spiegel International, “Next year, a three-person family [in Germany] will likely have to pay up to an additional €175 ($220) to finance the construction of renewable energy infrastructure.” “Success” also tends to ignore what to do at night when PV panels aren’t generating power (like when there’s too little or too much wind to drive windmills). Not until PV-generated power (including storage and/or nighttime power generation) can compete without taxpayer subsidies can we begin to talk about success.
I’ve written before I have no problem with “green” energies and I think most of us believe we should exploit all economically and technically viable energy sources. By “economically viable” I mean the ability to compete in the marketplace without subsidies, tax credits, et cetera. This is the same position I take with all forms of energy production. What I take issue with is pinning our present and future solely on “green” energies while tying our hands behind our back regarding domestic production of coal, hydro, natural gas, nuclear, and oil-based energy. Instead, we need to let the marketplace do its job without government interference beyond that deemed necessary by limited-government principles. This is not the position of most leftists most of the time. Indeed, as soon as “green” energies get close to commercial viability, they are no longer deemed “green.” We’ve seen this already with some hydro, wind, and solar projects.
I can’t wait to see how Mr. Prose treats CNN news anchor Deb Feyerick. In an interview with Bill Nye, Ms. Feyerick asked, “Talk about something else that’s falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What’s coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion?” Yes, you read that right. Ms. Feyerick wondered if global warming causes falling asteroids.
This piece was a good example showing bias is as much about what is omitted as it is about what is said/written. It was also a good example of distraction.
“SEEN & HEARD
“• State Rep. James Roebuck of Philadelphia, the Democratic chairman of the House Education Committee, determined that it would take 10 years — YEARS — to return to the school funding level of 2010-11 under Gov. Tom Corbett’s current funding pace.
“We’re guessing he won’t be remembered as the ‘education governor.’”
[RWC] “Democratic chairman” is title inflation for “minority leader.” Rep. Paul Clymer (R-145) is the committee Chair.
I don’t know about any future budgets, but spending on education increased in this year’s (2012-2013) budget by 1.8%. For most of my comments on this subject in general, please read my critique of “Corbett’s priorities make no sense” (Don Skinner, 3/13/11).
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