The lineup for the Perugia International Journalism Festival 2009 has been announced. I’ll be speaking on the first of a series of panels devoted to ‘New Media – The Future of Journalism’. The topic is “Blogs and online communities: Where now for interactive journalism?”. The other members of the panel are Luca Conti, Ben Hammersley Antonio Sofi and Juan Varela.

The following day Paolo Ligouri, Marco Pratellesi, Charlie Beckett, Erik Ulken and Giuseppe Smorto will discuss “Networked journalism – permeable, interactve, 24/7, multi-platform, multi-dimensional – is here. The media is saved!” (if they have any time left after they finish reading out the title)

On Friday April 3rd the topic is “Information 2009: blogs, social media and online-only newspapers. Where do you get your news?” – discussed by Pierre Haski of rue89.com, Google’s Stefano Hesse, Carlo Revelli of Agoravox.com, and La Repubblica blogger Vittorio Zambardino.

And on the Saturday “Small is beautiful. Even to the big. How specialised media websites have won over readers, the market and big media companies. Niche set up, nice bright future?” PaidContent founder Rafat Ali, WeblogsSL founder Julio Alonso, Business Week editor-in-chief John Byrne, and Nova24 editor Luca De Biase will discuss.

The best thing about this festival is that members of the public can attend free of charge.

Would love to meet you if you’re there – let me know in the comments.