I’ve written news stories for PGN for 40 years, making me one of the longest-serving journalists for an LGBT news outlet in the world. Over the years, people have asked how I’ve lasted so long.
If the truth be told, I’ve never felt my contributions at PGN to be “work,” in the traditional sense of the word. It sounds hokey, but I’ve always felt my efforts to be a “labor of love.”
The great philosopher Thomas Carlyle said, “Do the duty that lies nearest to you.”
The duty that lies nearest to me is to shine a light on LGBT issues. It’s my “kismet.” It’s what nourishes my spirit, and makes my heart sing.
As a cub reporter in 1976, the world became my canvas and PGN provided a paintbrush to portray any LGBT-related injustice taking place.
I’m fortunate to work for a publisher, Mark Segal, who shares my philosophy of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
The great thing about PGN is that Mark will have your back, no matter how many feathers you might ruffle, when he sees that you’re conscientiously searching for the truth. When Mark sees you’re acting in good faith to tell a story that needs to be told, he’ll provide all the resources at his disposal to help you accomplish that goal.
An example would be a $900 phone bill I ran up on a story about insurance companies dropping men they discovered to be gay or otherwise refusing to insure gay men. I had to call every major insurance company nationwide, during a time when there was no Internet and long-distance calls were very expensive.
Was Mark thrilled with the bill? No. But he paid it without a murmur because he knew it was incurred during the course of a diligent search for the truth.
In a similar story many years later — but still before the Internet — Blue Cross actually tried to get an injunction to prevent one of my stories from being published. Everyone at PGN went into overdrive, ensuring the paper hit the streets before a judge had a chance to rule on the request.
Ironically, today PGN has Blue Cross as its employee health-care provider and Blue Cross has much more egalitarian policies.
I’m also grateful for PGN’s longstanding policy that a news story will run even if it doesn’t reflect favorably on a PGN advertiser. A story will be published regardless of the potential of losing an ad.
I’m not sure that was true at all LGBT media outlets over the years.
PGN ran dozens of my news stories about a local Boy Scouts council that occupied a city-owned building on the Ben Franklin Parkway while refusing to accept openly LGBT participants.
It took several years, and lengthy litigation, to end that situation. It wasn’t easy. PGN was accused of being anti-American, of being a bunch of “bitter old queens” who hated children.
Despite those unfounded attacks, the paper never wavered in its coverage, and the Boy Scouts eventually had to leave the building. Thankfully, the organization is moving in the direction of more equitable membership policies.
Journalists are sometimes accused of being “dilettantes,” people who flit from story to story without any depth.
Nobody can accuse anyone at PGN of being a dilettante in the Nizah Morris case.
Morris was a trans woman and popular entertainer in Philadelphia. In 2002, she was found on a Center City street corner with a fatal head wound, shortly after being inside a police vehicle for a “courtesy ride.”
I’ll never forget being in PGN’s newsroom and receiving a phone call from Nizah’s mother, Roslyn Wilkins, encouraging me to find out anything I could about her child’s death. She wasn’t at all comfortable with the story she was getting from police.
That particular story has been a 13-year journey, and counting! Hundreds of articles have been written. Records have been pried loose, the city’s Police Advisory Commission revisited the case and a movement is growing for state and federal probes.
All of this resulted in PGN receiving a Society of Professional Journalists investigative-reporting award — a first for any LGBT media outlet.
In 2014, I had a wonderful time traveling to Washington, D.C., with Mark Segal and PGN editor Jen Colletta to accept the award. It was a memorable occasion and an honor I’ll forever cherish.
The award also reinforced my belief that if you do the duty that lies closest to your heart, you’ll reap untold benefits, often when you least expect them. You may not amass a fortune financially. But in other ways, you’ll become wealthy beyond measure.