One truism that has remained constant over the years is that journalists and technologists rarely cohabit the same physical plane. Even when they cross each other's path, they rarely speak each other's language.

And yet, any great leap forward in the new media space requires great technology. As much as journalists like to imagine that careful reporting, balanced writing and the oldtime verities of the craft are what matters most in the new digital world, upstart startups like Digg, TechCrunch and Facebook are proving otherwise.

So it came as welcome news that MediaGiraffe's Journalism That Matters project will be bringing tech types and journalists together in a small but significant "mashup" conference on the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale, Calif., on April 30-May 3, 2008.

When geeks join forces with journalists, good things can happen.

Here are the details:

NewsTools2008 is a flexible, three-day convening that will offer journalists, technologists, entrepreneurs and funders a chance to explore ideas, form partnerships, develop projects, outline systems and businesses for sustaining "journalism that matters."

Who should attend:

• New Journalism Platform Entrepreneurs: Tool builders for journalists, citizens and communities to do journalism processes
• The Tech Community: Programmers, user -experience experts, social-network innovators, web 2.0 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and angel investors
• Media Reformers: Civic activists, alt-media practitioners, journalism reformers
• "New Media Pioneers": Heavy users of Web 2.0 for journalistic purposes, The "Pro-Am's", vloggers, news-blog writers, (+ more)
• "Traditional" Journalists: editors, publishers, new-media managers
• Local Online Entrepreneurs: Operators and planners of citizen-journalism initiatives serving communities.

I'll be there. The Journalism That Matters wiki is here. You can download the mashup handout here (PDF) (Spanish version here). Head here to register.