"A Public Conversation on Web Journalism" is a conference planned for April 3-4 at the University of Tennessee.

The conference will feature a variety of online professionals and academics in several forums and panels during that Thursday and Friday. Heading the group will be Rob Curley , vice president for product development for WashingtonPost.Newsweek and well-known web guru.

Academics coming to the conference will also discuss way of starting or enhancing student-operated news web sites on their campuses and the possibility of forming a national network of campus news web sites.

Students will have an opportunity to meet with professionals and discuss preparations and plans for a career in online journalism.

The conference is underwritten by a grant from the Scripps Foundation.

The conference will have a variety of panels and meeting through the day on Thursday and a dinner on Thursday evening with a nationally known online professional. Additional meetings will take place on Friday morning, and the conference will conclude by at lunchtime on Friday.

This conference is an extension of a recently concluded on-campus event called Convergence Week. You can read about that elsewhere in the Tennessee Journalist.

Much of the planning and logistics for this conference is being doing by the staff of the Tennessee Journalist (tnjn.com), the student-operated news web site of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee. Katie Rodgers, editor-in-chief of the site, and Martha Wampler, advertising and promotions director, are heading up the planning for the conference.