The tech crew behind BarCampPortland is doing its part to get the conversation rolling by extending an open invitation to local reporters, writers and bloggers to attend the city’s annual tech industry meetup, which takes place this Friday and Saturday, May 1-2, at CubeSpace, the S.E. Portland shared work and meeting space.

According to BarCampPortland cohost attendee Aaron B. Hockley, while many old-school news types still don’t get the whole RSS, Twitter and Web 2.0 ball of wax, “There are a lot of folks in the digital world interested in helping journalists understand the new media.”

Hockley and company are hoping to continue the discussion about the future of local journalism that started at the recent City Club Forum presentation on the same subject.

If you haven’t been to a BarCamp before, think of it as an unconvention. Unlike meetings where every minute is tightly scheduled in advance, BarCampPortland will have a general agenda but participants will decide exactly what gets covered when, basically making it up as they go. Here’s a video that explains how it works.

According to Hockley, the news industry discussion will most likely take place on Saturday, May 2, between 9 a.m. and noon. In the weeks leading up to BarCamp, announcement of the discussion already has local journos sharing their thoughts on the future of news, including opening up the news gathering process to the community.

BarCampPortland III runs Friday, May 1 from 6 to 10 p.m. and Saturday, May 2 from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and admission is free. CubeSpace is located at 622 SE Grand Ave, Portland, 97214. Register here.

If you can’t attend but what to follow what’s happening, use the keyword BarCampPortland to search for blog posts, pictures and Twitter feeds.