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Laughter By White House Press Corps Insulting

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May 29, 2009 8:33 pm US/Eastern

Laughter By White House Press Corps Insulting

Reporting
Jon Delano
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― When it was announced that Pittsburgh would host the next G-20 Summit, the White House press corps laughed.

It was probably a bit embarrassing to the White House because in the official verbatim transcript of the announcement, they eliminated the word "laughter" that would normally have appeared.

But it's a sign that Pittsburgh still has an image problem -- a problem that city leaders hope will be overcome by the G-20 summit this September.

"I guess I was somewhat insulted by it, to be honest with you," Mayor Luke Ravenstahl says.

Ravenstahl said it was a typical reaction from those who have never been here.

"That's the challenge we face. When people hear Pittsburgh, unfortunately across this country and the world, sometimes that's the reaction we receive."

Sky Foerster, president of the World Affairs Council, works with diplomats from all over the world who come to Pittsburgh.
 
"They know that Pittsburgh has made a renaissance," says Foerster. "Whether the world leaders know that, we'll find out. But Pittsburgh does have a reputation in many quarters around this globe as a city that has made a wonderful renaissance out of an industrial collapse of the 1980s."

But overcoming Pittsburgh's old reputation as a dirty, dying, smoky city has been hard.

City leaders never engaged in a well-coordinated national advertising campaign like other cities so overcoming the myths have come from one-on-one dealings in Pittsburgh.

"Once somebody comes here and sees this city and experiences it, they have nothing but good things to say," notes the mayor. "Our challenge often times is to get them to come here. Well now we got them coming here."

So as for those ignorant members of the White House press corps, Foerster says this: "I hope those snickerers from the White House press corps all come to Pittsburgh because when they drive through the tunnel, they'll either forget that they snickered or they'll start their story with, I snickered then but now I see something really impressive."

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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