Pittsburghers from all walks of life gathered Friday to brainstorm on how to turn September's G-20 summit into a marketing bonanza for this underappreciated city.

Quite a few journalists covered the event -- I count three on the Post-Gazette Web site alone -- but since they were there to report, they could not contribute to the impressive flow of ideas. If they could have, I'm reasonably certain their advice for making sure Pittsburgh comes off as a happening and marvelous place would be this:

Keep the journalists happy.

It really is that simple. Reporters will control the flow of information from Pittsburgh -- and about Pittsburgh. The diplomats will be, um ... diplomatic; the reporters will not.

Remember, some of them guffawed when the White House announced that our City of Champions would host the G-20 world economic summit. They're professional skeptics, and they apparently don't think we deserve this windfall. So, even more than we need to be ready for our close-up, we must show these reporters -- all 3,000 of them -- a great time.

One participant in Friday's brainstorming session seemed to be headed in that direction when he proposed having lots of water bottles and even "shade stations" near the convention center.

Reporters, like certain delicate plants, need to be well-watered. And by that I mean -- as big as it is, there's no way 3,000 journalists are going to fit around the bar at the Hilton.

Anyone who's ever gotten out of a weeknight event and looked for refreshment somewhere Downtown or on the North Side knows there's only a handful of places open past 10 p.m. Who hasn't walked into a promising "night"-spot at 10:15 to be shooed right back out the door?

(So much for greedy capitalists! Pittsburgh tavern owners would rather sleep than sell.)

That's not gonna fly with the international media crowd. They'll be arriving at least a couple of days before the Thursday-to-Friday summit, and they won't cotton to a place that rolls up its sidewalks at dusk.

We won't be able to maximize the G-20 exposure if we stick with our "Gee -- 10?" mode.

So keep the doors open late that week. Astonished natives will also flock to this once-in-a-lifetime bounty, and the good times will roll.

Besides facilitating fun for the media horde, we have to think about making their work as easy as possible. An article in Friday's paper explained the measures that local officials are already pursuing to ensure the convention center is high-tech central -- ready to support all the wired, wireless and satellite equipment the media will need.

That's the "how." But we need to help them with the "what" -- the content.

Besides their coverage of the summit conferences, reporters will be seeking a little local color for those where-the-heck-are-we stories. Let's make sure the local color is easy to find -- and that it's not just protesters' placards.

Reporters like contrast -- state-of-the-art technology in a town rife with history; steady regional economy in a reeling nation and world; sparkling mecca of medical research emerging from sooty industrial past; the "most livable" little city you've never thought of visiting. ... Hey -- contrasts are us! Somebody type up a press packet.

Reporters are also suckers for anything quaint and charming. Every trolley on the Eastern Seaboard should be corralled for the G-20 summit -- the better to take media types through old Allegheny City by day and to the Penn Brewery or East Carson Street by night.

Speaking of quaint and charming, these may be the last visitors to Pittsburgh who'll be able to see PNC Park before its retro greatness is completely obscured by all the unnecessary buildings being thrown up right next to it.

Hey, city planners, Pittsburgh already has plenty of unoccupied structures, and just as the brainstormers said, we'll need to fill vacant storefronts with art installations and replace dead trees and basically redd up like there's no recession.

But all this work will be for naught if the weather doesn't cooperate. It would be great if Pittsburgh's faithful would pray down three or four days of flawless early-autumn sunshine for the thousands and thousands of guests who'll be emerging for the first time through the Fort Pitt Tunnel.

We don't have to be greedy -- even when our skies are overcast, the light here has a vibrant, pearly quality beloved by photographers and painters alike.

And if we get the monsoon in September that we didn't get, miraculously, during June's Three Rivers Arts Festival, well, there's always the bars to keep the reporters dry, and wet.