A Phaggot in Philly

Media whore does not begin to describe Mark Segal's position in the Pantheon of journalism. The man drops names like an exhibitionist drops trouser, and screams "look at me" like Stewart from Mad TV. Nothing is sacrosanct or sacrilegious when it comes to his fifteen minutes of fame. Not even the well-being of his fellow Philadelphians.

Mr. Segal is no stranger to the spotlight. Weekly he nimbly strides the line which is the balance between owner and journalist. Owner, editor, and writer, he manages to finesse the truth, or some semblance thereof, out of fact with no lesser skill than Roger Ailes or Rupert Murdoch. In fact his punditry of the pen heralds back to the days of William Randolph Hearst, sacrificing believability for bi-line.

In his latest attempt at fair and balanced storyline, Segal presented gay Philadelphia with blank columns on the front page of his PGN, Philadelphia Gay News. In a blatant attempt to curry favor with the establishment and to grab attention from legitimate stories, Mr. Segal cried foul, threw himself upon the ground, and played the victim in a tug of war of egos between his fag rag and legitimate press outlets.

In a circus fitting Fox News, he proclaimed the more than 1500 days since the Obama campaign had talked to the gay press--read Mark Segal. In an effort to endear himself to his candidate of choice, Mr. Segal filled the front page with quotes from Senator Clinton, while making it appear the Senator Obama was not interested in talking with the gay press.

But then as if to drain his ink wells, Barack Obama did grant an interview with the gay press. However, it was not the gay press Mark Segal wanted it to be. Senator Obama gave an extensive and opening interview with The Advocate, the national gay magazine--not the fish wrap from Fish Town.

In Mr. Segal's blatant play for attention, he neglected the truth to the detriment of his community. Senator Obama has been championing gay rights as part of a larger push for civil rights for years. Although he may not run to grant interviews to narcissistic journalism wannabes, he does stick his neck out, speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Church, at the same pulpit from which Martin Luther King delivered sermons of peace and hope, railing against the black community's homophobia and complacency for their gay brethren.

When it was neither fashionable nor politically expedient, Senator Obama spoke out for gays from the floor of the Democratic National Convention, to his rallies, and in the pages of his books. Keeping consistent and on message, that all people are created equal, the junior senator from Illinois has pitched a large tent, under which all people can find common ground if they agree to put pettiness and self-serving aside for the greater good.

And it is into that tent Barack Obama would love to invite Mr. Segal, were he not so intent of self promotion and political degradation. But Segal is not interested in such self-sacrifice for the common good. He is more interested in playing the Impresario to his own side show of distorted fact and half truths.

And that is a shame. At a time when our nation is hungry for heroes and is looking for a path out of the brier patch of eight years of Bush, Mark Segal offers little more than a merry-go-round trough the thicket, dragging the good people of his city and community along for the ride, hoping they will not raise their heads long enough to realize he is part of the media circus intent on a race not of ideas but of mud slinging not to raise us all up, but to tear us down and bring us nothing more than the status quo.

And for that Mark Segal should be eternally ashamed.

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