J.D. Prose – 8/18/13

This page was last updated on August 22, 2013.

It was a good run, but this column’s over; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; August 18, 2013.

According to his personal 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 this column.

“It’s a bittersweet day for me, dear readers. Why? Well, on the one hand Gov. Tom Corbett’s re-election chances are increasingly bleak and the Republican Party is inching closer each day to becoming a marginalized faction of hate, selfishness, xenophobia, misogyny and racism.”

[RWC] What about anti-Semitism, chelonaphobia, ephebiphobia, gerontophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, misandry, and so on?

In his column of today, “new Times Executive Editor Shane Fitzgerald” wrote of “appropriate decorum and respect for others’ views,” “a polite, respectful discussion,” and “disagree[ing] in a civil manner.” Apparently, it was to take effect after August 18, 2013.

“On the other hand, today marks the end of the Political Prose column as you and I know it and, if you haven’t noticed, the end of my using the royal ‘we’ after all these years. That’s the true tragedy in all this.”

[RWC] Before our weekly golf round, my friends (aka “haters”) jokingly congratulated me for the demise of “Political Prose.” They even told me I could mention their names in this critique. I declined, telling them they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. The truth is, of course, I had nothing to with the BCT’s choice; my readership is small and it’s likely BCT ownership and Mr. Fitzgerald never heard of me or read my critiques. I don’t have the power to shut anyone down and, even if I did, I certainly would not shut down “Political Prose.”

Most lefties appear to want to silence their opposition; I support the opposite approach. As I’ve written over the years, the more a leftist speaks and writes, the easier it is to defeat him and his ideology. Sooner or later, a lefty’s real positions leak out and these folks don’t like to get into a debate with knowledgeable non-believers willing to do some research. Activists like Mr. Prose who deal in name-calling, personal attacks, and so on and who regularly use anonymous (imaginary?) sources make the task easier.

Shortly after the BCT added the ability to post comments on its website, a BCT rep sent me – and I assume a bunch of other commenters – an e-mail note asking if I had any suggestions for improving the experience. Though not really what the rep was asking about, I recommended a regular column written by local prolific commenters on a rotating basis. I also provided a list of names, all of which were of local lefties. Readers of the BCT op-ed pages and/or the comments on the BCT website would recognize the names of “the usual suspects.” Alas, the BCT did not take my advice. After all, I’m a retired mechanical engineer, not a journalist.

“After 7½ years of bashing goofy, corrupt and incompetent politicians from dysfunctional local boards to our dysfunctional state Legislature to our dysfunctional Congress, new Times Executive Editor Shane Fitzgerald has decided that having a reporter comment on the people he covers comes too close to crossing journalism’s ethical line.”

[RWC] “Having a reporter comment on the people he covers comes too close to crossing journalism’s ethical line?” Gee, who would have guessed? I didn’t know journalism had an “ethical line.” <g> Yes, that was a cheap shot. Seriously, though, the first Prose piece I critiqued was “Political Prose: Who has the tools to fix America?” (11/1/08). I led that critique with the following: “As you read this opinion column, keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the Times. Mr. Prose is also a reporter covering political stories. Ask yourself this. When a person 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?” That leadoff evolved into the boilerplate (See above.) I include with every critique of a Prose column.

“Shane can explain the particulars of it better than I can, so just look over to your left. No, your other left. See? He’s got a column today on Page A8. Go read it.”

[RWC] Mr. Prose can’t explain why it’s bad for one writer to pen both “news” and opinion pieces on the same topic?

“If you’re not inclined to turn your head, here’s the deal: Political Prose in its current form is dead. It could return as a straight political-reporting column, sort of like it was in the very beginning, but that remains to be seen. If it does return, it won’t include my comments, thoughts and opinions. That’s pretty much it.”

[RWC] “Political Prose … could return as a straight political-reporting column, sort of like it was in the very beginning … [and] won’t include my comments, thoughts and opinions?” Sure, as if there really was a time Mr. Prose’s ideology and politics didn’t guide his writing regardless of the topic and where it appeared in the paper.

“In the meantime, I’ll be able to devote more time to reporting on the county, which I did long before this column came along.

“Thanks to everyone for reading over the years. It was fun, maybe not for my deserving targets, but I hope it was for you. I also need to thank my editors past and present who have given me the freedom to be an acid-tongued loud mouth and occasionally pulled me back from the edge of embarrassing myself, my family, The Times, my beloved University of Maryland, the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment.”

[RWC] You may recall Mr. Prose’s “deserving targets” included anyone in Beaver County who didn’t vote for Barack Obama. That’s because if you didn’t vote for Mr. Obama, it was because you were a racist.

I’d like to see some examples of when Mr. Prose’s “editors past and present … occasionally pulled [him] back from the edge of embarrassing [himself] … .”

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my haters, too. Yes, thank. Their vitriol and stupidity was only exceeded by my apathy. Their hate only made it more fun for me. I don’t think they ever quite caught onto that.”

[RWC] By “hater,” Mr. Prose likely means anyone who disagrees with him and his ideology and politics, especially if the person is on the right. You have to appreciate the chutzpah, though. Mr. Prose engages in name-calling and launches personal attacks then complains of “haters” returning fire with “their vitriol and stupidity.” I don’t know if Mr. Prose learned this from fellow BCT pundit Gino Piroli or grew into it on his own.

“‘The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics,’ reads the quote from writer/poet Richard LeGallienne [sic] that’s taped to our monitor, ‘for it is always the quality they most diligently attack.’”

[RWC] Is Mr. Prose patting himself on the back for drawing fire from people upon whom he launched personal attacks?

To a degree, a man is known by the company he keeps. Mr. Prose considers State Rep. Jesse “Ashley Jackson” White (D-46) a “Friend of the Column” and a “good buddy,” plus he’s chummy with Beaver County Reds.

“I think Rick must have been a columnist, too. Adios, amigos.”

[RWC] Perhaps Mr. Prose can ghost-write for John Vranesevich. Nearly two years ago I speculated Mr. Prose may have been auditioning to change the Vranesevich operation from a one-man-band into a two-men-band. Messrs. Prose and Vranesevich appear to have similar standards, the same “style,” and both like to use the royal “we.” Heck, Mr. Vranesevich even wrote a mushy “obituary” for “Political Prose.”