Next Saturday I will be flying to Beirut, Lebanon to participate at the 2nd Arab Free Press Forum, a media conference organized by the World Association of Newspapers and An-Nahar daily. The conference will provide an overview of the latest press developments in the Arab world, from obstructive government policies, to case studies of newspapers that combine editorial independence with commercial success, to the rise of blogging and the role blogs play on the Arab media scene of today.

I will be speaking on the second day of the conference on a discussion panel titled “Blogs, an Alternative Way of Telling the News.” I’m humbled to be joined on the panel by Egyptian A-list blogger Wael Abbas, Jordanian blogger Mohammed Azraq, and Wadih Tueni, IT Manager of An-Nahar. The panel is moderated by Egyptian human rights lawyer Mohammed Abdelfattah.

It will be my first time to speak in a conference so I’m excited and nervous but I’m also looking forward to it. I hope I will be able to update the blog from Beirut, but I read that using the internet in Lebanese hotels is outrageously expensive. If any of you will be in Beirut at the same time and would like to meet up, drop me a line and we will see if we can pull something off.