This ought to be fun.

Eric Schmidt, who will keynote the Newspaper Association of America’s annual convention, runs the search engine company and advertising beast that many journalists at sick and/or dying newspapers blame for sucking up some of their advertising dollars.

(They also blame Yahoo, which touts its newspaper consortium that tries to help the papers make at least some honest dollars off ad sales)

Google also is the company that deep-sixed its program to sell newspaper advertising because it didn’t make enough money.

All that prologue ought to make for a real yabba-dabba-doo time in San Diego as 21st Century Schmidt faces a potentially hostile crowd of dinosaurs.

Here are the details, courtesy of the NAA:

In the event’s keynote presentation, Google CEO Eric Schmidt will provide his unique perspective on newspapers, journalism and his company’s role in the future of the industry. Live audio streaming of his presentation, scheduled for April 7 at 10 a.m. (PST), will be accessible at www.naa.org/annual09audio. Additionally, NAA will offer a moderated “Cover it Live” discussion on its PRESSTIME Now! blog, available at http://community.naa.org/blogs/presstime. Users can visit the blog during the presentation to pose questions, share their thoughts and get live reactions from attendees. The full conference program, lodging information and registration details are at http://www.naa.org/Conferences/Annual09Home.aspx.

(Photo: Eric Schmidt… yes, the one on the right)