Journalism is here to stay, because people will always want to read and hear great stories. It’s important for that message to be heard above the clamour of the crisis in media and publishing.

So journalism and narrative will be at the heart of the Walkley Media Conference to be held in Brisbane from November 25 to 27. It’s part of the Walkley Festival of Journalism that will culminate with the Walkley Awards dinner on November 27.

What better place than Brisbane to host this festival, with Queensland being at the epicentre of the some of the biggest news events of the year, including the floods and Cyclone Yasi?

Discussion will include hearing from the new players in the field: entrepreneurial journalists who have set up new ideas with new sources of funding as well as international thought leaders and top industry executives examining the options. Panels will delve into ways to help journalists and journalism survive and thrive in this new media landscape.

But we also want to foster and maintain the narrative skills of Australian journalists and their stories in the plethora of traditional and new media platforms. Hear a diverse and talented group of people share secrets of how to make their stories sing and sell and how to build online communities and loyal audiences.

The conference is going to be a feast of ideas, with workshops, masterclasses, discussions and international keynotes. It will appeal broadly to media creators, presenting a program that links artists, authors, journalists, online media-creators, screen-writers, film-makers and others around story-telling and defining new media for ourselves.