Thu. webinar from Harvard to explore rural-urban economic divide, accuracy of metrics used to measure economy

A panel of journalists and policy experts will discuss the rural-urban economic divide in a free webinar at 1 p.m. ET Thursday, Aug. 13. Registration is required, and the webinar will last about an hour. Click here for more information or to register.

The webinar will be hosted by Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, and is part of a series aimed at exploring the difference in how people experience economic opportunity and how the economy is portrayed and understood by the media, government, and elite institutions using yardsticks (such as gross domestic product, the stock market, and unemployment rates) that don't always reflect economic reality for Americans.

From the website: "Divides – economic, racial, cultural, and educational, to name just a few – exist between communities across the country. But the perceived divide between rural and urban areas have been a lightning rod for our national conversation over the past several years. [The panelists] will dig into what is real about the divide between rural and urban America, and where we actually find more commonalities than differences across these communities. Come hear the real stories of what is happening economically in urban and rural America."

The panelists will be:

• Connor Sheets, investigative reporter for the Alabama Media Group
• Phillip Martin, senior investigative reporter for the WGBH News Center for Investigative Reporting in Boston
• Dr. Gordon Hanson, Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government
• Setti Warren, executive director of the Shorenstein Center and former mayor of Newton, Mass.
• Tara Westover, author of Educated and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School