“The idea is simple — you go to Google blog search or Technorati or Memeorandum and look for info on local or even statewide elections, you’re going to end up with posts from blogs halfway across the country or about entirely different races. BNN/Elections brings you the posts from left and right from bloggers who are actually on the scene — the bloggers who have been writing about local and state politics, who go to the speeches and know the players down to the precinct captain level.”

I’m proud to say that this is one of the outcomes of the Networked Journalism conference at CUNY last fall:

Baristanet and the Star-Ledger are joining to create a cobranded print guide to the Barista’s turf, Montclair, NJ, with content from both partners, Star-Ledger distribution, and shared effort on the advertising.

So a blogger and a newspaper are making business together. Bravo.

Debbie Galant announces the birth today:

Baristanet is again making news in the media world. This time, it’s our partnership with the Star Ledger (yes, the Star Ledger!) to create a print guide to Montclair. Last week, Baristanet founder Debbie Galant and Star Ledger editor in chief Jim Willse spoke about the partnership to a group of newspaper and web editors from all over the world.

The official matchmaker was new media evangelist Jeff Jarvis, who suggested the partnership during his Networked Media Summit in New York last October.

The co-branded 36-page “Explore Montclair” guide will have stories by Baristanet and the Ledger, and even a special Montclair crossword puzzle by Tony Orbach. It goes out to 70,000 readers on May 15. If you’re not a home subscriber, you’ll be able to pick it up at the Montclair Public Library and many other locations (more on that later.)

The ad reservation deadline is tomorrow. If you want to underwrite history, let us know right away.

In response to the numerous e-mails I’ve gotten but haven’t had time to respond to, that headline pretty much sums it up.

From every indicator, BostonNOW was heading in all the right directions. Circulation was shooting upward and revenues were following. Since I took over the reigns at the Web site just over a month ago, some plans had made it live . . . just not my favorites.

Then the investors from Iceland quit paying the bill. I don’ t know much about that.

Read more: from Lucas Grindley and BostonNow itself.

Representative Journalism is Leonard Witt’s project to experiment in new business models of journalism. You can listen to the podcast where Leonard and the rest talk about the idea here.

It’s an opportunity for journalists and programmers to share part of their cultures and find a common ground where they can build and develop tools that will benefit journalism and community.

For groundbreaking international reporting, we are working with Columbia University Professor Anne Nelson, who studies new media and the developing world at SIPA. We’re looking forward to publishing her latest investigation of new media and development, creating an ongoing collaboration with her students and evolving GroundReport’s platform with her guidance.

One more addition, we’ll be part of Netvibes’ sponsored search results for Ginger, their new, more social news platform. You can find us in the press release.