While the Meet the Media program was billed as a mix of new ideas, it was a combination of some familiar themes and challenges, along with new ideas mainly focused on how to use resources to maximize engagement.

The Meet the Media panel held at on Tuesday, March 26 was constructed a little differently than past panels. More than 85 local journalists and communicators gathered to hear and participate in a conversation with six panelists instead of the usual four. The panel was comprised of Russ Mitchell, Evening Anchor and Managing Editor at WKYC Channel 3; Scott Suttell, Special Projects Editor at Crain’s Cleveland; Sia Nyorkor, Anchor and Reporter at WOIO, Cleveland 19; Vince Grzegorek, Editor at Cleveland Scene; Sam Allard, Reporter at Axios Cleveland; and Nick Castele, Government Reporter at Signal Cleveland. The panel was moderated by Denise Polverine, Publisher of Cleveland Magazine.

During the fast-paced discussion, the panelists each offered their views on the state of local journalism. While Mitchell, Castele and Nyorker expressed hope for local journalism as we are seeing more journalism organizations in town, Allard pointed out that our community is still underserved when compared to newsrooms such as The Plain Dealer’s which had hundreds or reporters, layers of editors, photographers and artists who handled telling the stories of our communities and holding those in power accountable. While no local newsroom will get

back those numbers of employees, Signal Cleveland was upheld as a great example of a local media outlet using important resources to cover city hall and county government.

Each panelist talked about the challenges of doing more with less resources, diversity in the newsroom, the line between edit and sales, and which social media they were focusing on to attract younger audiences. While the conversation was rich, it will be ongoing, of course. This fall, six more panelists representing local media outlets will be part of The Press Club of Cleveland’s “Meet the Media, 2.” 

As always, gives us your ideas for programs, topics and events!

Belle Mercurio

Job title: Marketing & Communications Manager

Employer: Engage! Cleveland

What's your proudest professional moment? To date, the proudest I've felt in a coupe of different roles were when I have seen the results of my efforts. One being when I had my first story published in Crain's Clevaland Business and I received glowing feedback from board members.

If you hadn't chosen a field in communications, what would you probably be doing now for a living? I would have been an art teacher!

Bre Ganuelas Tischler

Job title: Director, Marketing and Communications

Employer: Girl Scouts of North East Ohio

What's your favorite part of you job? There are a lot of things I love about my job, but I'd have to say one of my favorites has been launching our brand-new Media Girls program. Being able to see our 27 Media Girls put the training they received into real-life media opportunities is amazing. (Really any chance I get to interact with any of the 18,000 Girl Scouts we serve and see the amazing things they're doing in the communityis incredibly rewarding.)



Angela Gartner

Northeast Ohio Parent

Cheryl Powell

Journalist

Tara Morgan