Wesley Pruden

Editor got start at Gazette in ’50s

A "whale of a news man" who got his start in Arkansas died this week after more than 60 years as a journalist.

Wesley Pruden, columnist and former editor for The Washington Times, was found dead in his residence Wednesday, the Times reported. He was 83.

"He was happily in charge of everything," said Griffin Smith, a longtime friend of Pruden's and the former executive editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "He was a veteran conservative, and his columns stand the test of time. He was just an all-around fun guy and a true newspaperman."

Pruden was born Dec. 18, 1935, in Jackson, Miss. His family moved to Little Rock, where Pruden's father became president of the Capital Citizens' Council, a segregationist organization that would later protest the Freedom Riders and the desegregation of Central High School.

Pruden attended Pulaski Heights Junior High School and Little Rock High School. He began working for the Arkansas Gazette during his junior year of high school and moved up to assistant state editor before he moved to Memphis. Pruden worked three years for the Commercial Appeal after his graduation in 1953.

After seven years in Memphis, Pruden moved to Washington, D.C., where he was a political and foreign correspondent for The National Observer until 1976, according to a report from the Arkansas Gazette in 1985. He began working for The Washington Times just months after the paper began publishing in 1982. He remained with the Times for the duration of his career until he retired in 2008.

Pruden published a regular column on politics. Smith said Pruden had a "zest" for the latest political news and was a staunch and vocal conservative.

Smith also said Pruden never lost his affection for Arkansas. He recalled that on former President Bill Clinton's inauguration day, Pruden ran a headline across the top of the Washington Times' front page that read "Wooo, pig, sooey" -- a well-known chant associated with the University of Arkansas' athletics teams.

"Some people thought it was meant as an insult, but it wasn't," Smith said. "It was a celebration -- even though he was not what you would call a Clinton-ista. I think that was just an example of Wesley's good sense of humor."

Phillip McMath, an attorney and freelance writer who was sometimes published in The Washington Times, described Pruden as a "real gentleman."

McMath met Pruden through Smith, and though they never met in person, McMath said they had several conversations over the past five years through email.

"He was a very gifted journalist of the old school," McMath said. "He was just an interesting opinion writer and very skillful in his writing."

Pruden rose through the ranks at The Washington Times, where he would eventually become editor. Smith, a former speech writer for President Jimmy Carter, said he'd visit Pruden each time he made a trip to the nation's capitol.

Once, while riding in Pruden's limousine -- which had a phone line inside, a rarity for the time -- Smith said Pruden began talking about a story he intended to run in the next day's paper.

"I said, 'I'm sorry. I'm going to miss it. I'm leaving at 6,'" Smith said. "He picked up the phone, dialed a number and said have a copy outside his door at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning. Sure enough, it was there."

Pruden continued to write columns regularly even after he stepped down from the editor's position in 2008 amid allegations that he allowed racism to permeate the Times office, according to previous reports.

His last column, published Monday, criticized Democratic U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who he said "sound like ingrates."

Metro on 07/20/2019

Upcoming Events