Attention D.C. journalists, there’s a new media critic in town, and this one has the power to introduce legislation officially slamming your work. Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large) is still so cheesed about a report last month filed by NBC4 reporter Mark Segraves, he introduced a sense of the Council resolution today demanding an apology and retraction from the veteran D.C. reporter.
Orange is mad about a June 12 story Segraves filed about the his cooperation in an ongoing federal probe into local campaign finance. Orange gave prosecutors copies of his campaign finance documents; Ron Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, is investigating political donations tied to Jeff Thompson, the mega-donor who is believed to be behind a $653,000 “shadow campaign” waged on behalf of Vince Gray’s 2010 mayoral effort.
But Segraves, like other reporters covering the story, could not get a comment that day from Orange, despite hovering outside his John A. Wilson Building office suite for a spell. “As reporters waited outside Vincent Orange’s office where his staff said he’d be in meetings all day and be unavailable for comment, the councilmember slipped outside a side door, ran out to his car parked here, and sped off before any reporters could ask any questions,” Segraves said in his report.
Orange was not happy. A week later, he sent a letter to NBC4 claiming that the story suggested that he had snuck out a door that does not actually exist in his office, or perhaps even out the window. “I am now the butt of jokes,” wrote Orange, who only a year ago was referring to himself as “the best.”
Segraves and stood by the piece, later telling DCist that he was describing how Orange moseyed out of a side door on the Wilson Building. Yet Orange could not let it go.
“As y’all know, there is only one way in my office and one way out,” he said during the D.C. Council’s legislative session today while reading a stemwinder of a resolution castigating Segraves and demanding greater accountability from the media writ large—all with Segraves sitting about 10 feet from Orange in the Council chamber.
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, trying to put the session back on the rails, perfunctorily asked if there were any co-sponsors to Orange’s resolution.
“I’m No. 1,” Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) chimed in. The mayor-for-life, though was the only one to attach his name. Mendelson declined to refer the resolution to a committee, merely saying that he would take it under advisement.
As for Segraves, as one of many local reporters covering the final meeting of the Council’s current legislative session, he sat in the chamber as Orange reamed him out from the dais. Segraves declined to comment on the resolution, merely shaking his head toward a gaggle of colleagues who rushed over from the Wilson Building’s press room.
A few minutes later, Segraves stopped by the press room to collect a few belongings. He stuck by his non-comment, and himself slipped out the door.
