New News Conference seeking citizen journos

Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) and the Swinburne University Public Interest Journalism Foundation (PIJ) will partner in presenting a groundbreaking two day conference on the future of journalism on 2nd and 3rd September 2010.

This conference will be about collaboration and creation, and about building new and creative relationships between newsmakers and audiences. This is an optimistic conference that will go beyond tired old debates about bloggers versus journalists to embrace and bring together all those who are using new technologies to communicate and access news.

New News 2010 will be more than just a conference. It will include keynote discussions and panel sessions – both free and ticketed events – and will be open to professional journalists and the general public. There will also be a series of workshops aimed at teaching digital skills to industry practitioners and the general public. It will also include an Expo space in which organisations and individuals using new media to advance journalism are welcome to exhibit their work.

Everyone is welcome. The conference is open to professionals, students, citizen content makers and the general community. New News 2010 will be designed to encourage community engagement, increase digital literacy, involve journalists the media industry and the general public.

MWF and PIJ are now seeking expressions of interest from all those people we don’t know about. If you have an innovative news-based blog, if you are a citizen journalist doing things the mainstream industry should know about, if you have ideas that are seeking a wider audience and want to be part of this event, then we want to hear from you.

Please contact PIJ project officer Tara Peck at tpeck@groupwise.swin.edu.au or (03) 9214 5239 or Dr Andrew Dodd at adodd@swin.edu.au or (03) 9214 8315