ADVISORY/``Cheers or Sneers: Media's Role in Economic Development'' is topic of Business and the Media Lunch Tuesday, Sept. 24.

News/Assignment Editors

ADVISORY...for Tuesday (Sept. 24)

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

"Cheers or Sneers: Media's Role in Economic Development" is the topic of a panel discussion at the annual Business and the Media Lunch.

It will be Tuesday, Sept. 24 at the City Club of Cleveland, 850 Euclid Avenue. Registration opens at 11:30 a.m.; lunch will be served PROMPTLY at noon.

This event is hosted by the Press Club of Cleveland, the Cleveland Chapter of IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) and the Greater Cleveland Chapter of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America).

Panelists:

Tim Mueller, Chief Development Officer for the City of Cleveland

Brent Larkin, Editorial Page Director, The Plain Dealer

Ned Hill, Cleveland State University Professor of Economic Development

Stephanie W. Turner, VP, Community Development Banking, KeyBank

Moderator: Mike Roberts, Senior Vice President, Fleishman-Hillard and former editor of Cleveland Magazine

The panel will discuss questions such as:

-- What role do the media play as Northeast Ohio strives to attract new employers and generate good jobs in technology, biomedicine and other fields?

-- Should the media be cheerleaders or critics? Boosters or skeptics?

-- What are the views and responsibilities of newspaper publishers and broadcast executives who have a stake in growing the community? Are those views and responsibilities diametrically opposed to those of the reporters and business editors who work for them, and whose job it is to prick pins in pie-in-the-sky planning?

-- As opinion leaders and gatekeepers, can the media participate in economic development? Or should the media act as a firewall?

For more information or to make reservations, call 440-899-1222.

Panelist & Moderator Biographies

Tim Mueller, co-founder of a Cleveland-based e-business firm, Vantage One Communications, was tapped this year by Mayor Jane Campbell to join her cabinet and direct economic development for the City of Cleveland. Formerly in corporate communications with Eaton Corp. and Standard Oil/BP America, Mueller sold Vantage One in 1999 to FutureNext Consulting.

Stephanie W. Turner administers the Community Reinvestment Act program for KeyBank's Greater Cleveland Region. She is also on Shaker Heights City Council. Prior to joining KeyBank in 1994, Turner was with National City Bank. She is a member of the Cleveland Marshall Alumni Association and the United Black Fund, is board president of the Urban Financial Services Coalition and is a past chair of the League of Women Voters of Cleveland Educational Fund.

Brent Larkin joined The Plain Dealer in 1981 as politics writer and later became a columnist, then director of the newspaper's opinion pages. A Cleveland native, he was with the Cleveland Press from 1970 to 1981, primarily covering City Hall. Larkin has a doctorate of law from Cleveland Marshall College of Law and was admitted to the practice of law in 1987.

Edward W. "Ned" Hill is an author and Professor and Distinguished Scholar of Economic Development at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He has edited Economic Development Quarterly since 1994. He's a member of the boards of trustees of both the Cleveland Zoological Society, which supports the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and the Westside Industrial Retention Network (WIRE-Net), which works to attract and retain industry and good-paying jobs on Cleveland's west side.

Mike Roberts, former Plain Dealer city editor and former editor of Cleveland Magazine, is a member of the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame. He is an author of a book on the Kent State shootings, served as a correspondent in Vietnam and the Middle East and covered the White House for The Plain Dealer. Today he is a senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations agency.