A number of institutes associated with Hahvahd University are going to invite some presumably cool people to discuss  Blogging, Journalism and Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground.

This happens on Jan. 21-22, but you, presumably uninvited member of the hoi polloi (like me), can participate through a webcast and IRC. There will also be blogging (and RSS feeds) a-plenty.

It sounds useful in terms of the blogs/Dean campaign brouhaha.

Here's the rationale for the arrangement:

Due to limited financial resources this conference cannot accommodate large numbers of people. But it will be webcast live and there will be an IRC so that people can participate remotely in the discussion. All conference sessions and all online discussion will be completely public and on-the-record.

Our shared motivation for convening such a conference is our conviction that the world of journalism is being transformed by blogging, and that - similarly - the blogosphere is evolving and being transformed in the process. There can be no question that the phenomenon of blogging, especially blogs focused on politics and public affairs, has changed the way information becomes front page news. The examples of Trent Lott, the Swiftboat allegations and the disputed CBS documents come immediately to mind. In each of these cases, bloggers shaped the news, and the influence of blogging will only increase.

To both journalism and blogging, credibility is essential. What are the areas of common ground shared by these very different approaches to handling news and information? Can journalists who also blog do their work without conflicting standards? Might bloggers adopt standards and a transparency that will elevate their credibility? Our purpose is to bring together a small group of smart and thoughtful people to ponder these and other related issues, which will result in a published report and - we hope - will mark the beginning of an on-going and very important dialogue.

Watch this blog for more details on the conference schedule, participants and plans. We have also launched a pre-conference discussion - see below for our latest posts.

Also please note that there are several useful resources on this blog:
- A link feed (via del.icio.us) of all the latest blog posts and articles relevant to our discussion.
- An aggregator (or “newsreader") of all the participants’ blogs and news sites (or at least those with RSS feeds), plus other blogs we think are worth reading regularly as in preparation for this conference.
- A suggested reading list of books and articles.