The New News 2010 Conference, which will be held this Thursday and Friday  is a collaboration between the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Swinburne University-based Public Interest Journalism Foundation.

Refreshingly, New News 2010 promises to leave behind the long-raging ‘bloggers vs. journalists’ debate and look at the opportunities that new technology can bring to journalism.

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott will give the keynote address which is intriguingly entitled The Quest for Truth: Quality Journalism and a 21st Century ABC.  The rest of the program includes a mix of panel interviews and roundtable discussions.

New News 2010’s optimistic outlook shows through in panel discussions such as Doing it Better: Opportunities for Better Coverage of the Issues that Matter and even The Business Models: Dead, or Just Resting?.  Still, the fact it’s a tough time to be a journo can’t be ignored. Our Future? Recruiters Speak and Cheek: The Getting and Losing Of Jobs Online are two sessions that will look at the challenges of finding employment in the media industry in 2010. Taking part in both of these discussions will be recent La Trobe graduate and former upstart editor Tom Cowie, who landed a job at Crikey last month following his spectacular #tomwantsajob campaign.

Go here for further information, including the full program. Better yet, get in touch and let us know what sessions you’ll be attending.

Sarah Green is a Master of Global Communications student at La Trobe University and is a member of upstart’s editorial team.