Porn Valley- Gene sez: Did I breach? Gene breached. Gene promised not to breach. But I saw him breach. It sounds like the basis of a Seinfeld script. But this morning I got a call from one of the performers at Tuesday night’s talent meeting taking me to the woodshed for reporting about the meeting. According to this performer, there was supposed to be have been a what happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas code of silence concerning the evening’s events.

My reply to those comments are simply this. At no time was I asked to adhere to a loose lips sink ships moratorium. But if it had been so vitally important to a cause, I would have kept select items of the meeting under wraps if not for the fact that a female reporter from the L.A. Times was also there snooping for information. The same reporter that has been covering the HIV story all along.

As soon as the meeting was over, one of the attendees was seen talking to the reporter at length. Sensing an imminent leak, someone apparently attempted to pull the plug on that confab, and from what I heard, a no comment edict was put immediately in place afterwards. This is what I was told, but not exactly what I witnessed because that didn’t preclude the L.A. Times reporter, pad in hand, from continuing to piece together a story by asking performers for home numbers, etc. and summoning a you-can-trust-me approach. If that reporter had been asked to leave, then things might have been different. But as far as I was concerned her appearance immediately lent an all-bets-are-off tone to the proceedings. At one point she was asked how she knew about the meeting and replied, “That’s why I’m a reporter.”

With that being said, I was not going to wake up this morning to discover that the L.A. Times had scooped me. Too often in this business I’ve been asked to sit tight on something only to find it appearing on another news site. Competitvely, that’s just the way things are in the reporting game. Then, I was also taken to task for “selectively reporting” because I had not included comments I made about AVN at the meeting.

So, therefore let me go on record to quote what I had said last night. I commented that AVN had no business conducting meetings that were exclusive of other members of the press, such as what they’re doing this evening. I likened that to the New York Times conducting presidential press conferences with them as the only attendees. I also likened AVN’s work moratorium demands as akin to Variety or Premier Magazine telling Paramount Pictures who to hire for their next projects.

I also remembered saying that AVN is an entity which makes it money off the adult business and, therefore, questioned their right to dictate policy of that business. AVN, as the so-called sacrosanct bible of the industry, should be required to work from the same level impartial playing field as other journalists in the business and not put themselves in compromising positions by making sweetheart deals with organizations they may have to break stories on in less than favorable fashion.