Also this issue:

Feds Indict "Mr. Fantastic"
A City Paper investigation leads to espionage charges.
-Howard Altman

Incendiary Situation
Neighbors nervous as MOVE boards up headquarters.
-Gwen Shaffer

Vegas, Baby!
-Daryl Gale

Hit 'Em Where They Live
-Daniel Brook

Rosey's Future
-Deborah Bolling

Starting the Dialogue
-Mary F. Patel

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

September 19-25, 2002

on media

Gay-J's Host the USA

A national convention of lesbian and gay journalists makes headlines for Philly.

by David Warner

A presidential candidate made news. Terry Gross made a confession. And Steve Kroft explained why he would never sleep with Bill Clinton.

Still, with all that tabloid fodder, it was the city of Philadelphia that everyone was talking about at the 11th annual convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), held Sept. 12-15 at the Loews Hotel.

"There was an excitement about the city that people didn't expect," said Pamela Strother, executive director of the organization, which counts 1,100 members in 22 chapters nationwide. "The bar has been raised for Los Angeles," site of the 2003 conclave.

Eric Hegedus of NLGJA Philadelphia co-chaired the convention, which brought together more than 500 lesbian and gay journalists from media organizations large and small, as well as a contingent of marquee-name guest speakers, many of them (like Kroft and Gross) straight. Hegedus, a features page designer at the Inquirer, said hosting the convention was a "fantastic" experience -- especially since he'd had a few trepidations going in.

"Frankly I was a little bit surprised that a lot of people fell in love with the city," he said, sounding like a true Philadelphian.

Local media made a good showing. Inquirer TV columnist Gail Shister, long a major force in NLGJA, was her usual irrepressible self during onstage interviews with guest speakers, posing questions like, "If you were really, really drunk, would you sleep with Bill Clinton?" Kroft, the 60 Minutes co-editor, replied gamely, "No. I never fuck with my sources." Gross, host of WHYY's Fresh Air, looked askance when asked the same question, but she did go on to reveal during the audience Q&A that she'd been fired from her first job as a teacher because, among other reasons, the kids thought she was a drug addict (they assumed her long sleeves were covering up needle tracks). Knight Ridder, parent company of the Inky and Daily News, sponsored a reception attended by Mayor Street, and City Paper revived the Mondo Philly Bus Tour, first introduced during the Republican National Convention. (This time the star was Famous Fourth Street Deli owner Dave Auspitz -- father of CP arts editor Debra Auspitz -- who came aboard bearing cookies and tales of South Philly.) WXPN's Robert Drake and Steve Rosen of STAR/Rosen Public Relations, members of the 20-person Host Committee, helped organize a, um, host of social activities. Two NLGJA Philly members got elected to national posts: Hegedus to vice president, print media, and Hassan Sudler, editor of the Rehoboth Beach Gayzette, to the national board.

And a Philadelphian who's about to leave town -- the Inquirer's deputy managing editor Hank Klibanoff (not an NLGJA member) -- was the talk of the convention's job fair, at least at the Cox Newspapers booth. Cox owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where Klibanoff is about to become co-managing editor. According to Marilyn Geewax, a Washington correspondent for Cox who spent time at the booth on Friday and Saturday, "reporters from all over the country" stopped by to ask about jobs specifically because they were interested in following Klibanoff.

"I heard him described as the soul of the Inquirer,'" said Geewax, a 1994-95 Nieman Fellow who began her journalistic career at the Knight Ridder-owned Akron Beacon-Journal. "The clear sentiment is that the mojo is moving from Knight Ridder to Cox. We're delighted that their loss happens to be our gain."

But the big news from the convention came from a Vermonter, not a Philadelphian. Howard Dean, who is retiring after 11 years as governor of Vermont in preparation for a presidential run, stated during a Saturday breakfast speech that "as president, I would have Congress recognize civil unions" of same-sex partners. (Under Dean's watch, Vermont became the only state in the country to formally recognize relationships of gay and lesbian couples.) Coming from a potential major-party candidate for president, it was quite a statement -- and it hit the Associated Press that same day.