Tomorrow's reporter?

Month-old daily BostonNow will be populating its pages with blogger submissions from the BostonNow Web site, reports News.com.

The notion is the brainchild of Editor-in-Chief John Wilpers, who last week had editors begin adding blog material in gray boxes alongside standard reporter- and newswire-generated articles.

"It doesn't take a whole lot of smarts to look out at the Internet and see thousands writing on their communities, whether they be geographic or thematic," said Wilpers of blogs. "They're writing about Jamaica Plain or Dorchester or the Boston music scene or windsurfing on Massachusetts Bay." He noted that the new's industry's biggest problem is an inability to connect with the communities it covers.

With BostonNow's growing circulation of 85,000, the Wilpers also hopes the increased exposure that featured bloggers receive will increase ad traffic for their own sites.

While bloggers have not received payment for their work, they do retain ownership of their submissions. Bloggers are also subject to "the same fairness and quality standards we run our own reporters through," added Wilpers.

BostonNow next plans to create a code of ethics for online comments.

Before hanging his hat at BostonNow, Wilpers previously worked for Metro Boston and The Washington Examiner, two other free commuter papers.