At the start of this month the Seattle Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the killing of four police officers in Lakewood, Seattle.
In a truly collaborative Web 2.0 ethos the award was presented not to one journalist but to the staff of the Seattle Times. The awarding committee commended the Times for their;
“[...]comprehensive coverage, in print and online, of the shooting deaths of four police officers in a coffee house and the 40-hour manhunt for the suspect.”
The online converge the committee is referring to is Wave, Google’s real-time blogging app.
Wave was launched in September last year to a limited audience to 100,000 users. Google describes Wave as a cross between email and Twitter. The service operates in a similar fashion to Twitter where people can create messages on which others can comment.
Wave’s ‘USP’ comes from its ability to embed rich media elements such as video, maps and VOIP applications amongst others into each message.
The Seattle Times used Google Wave used Wave to uncover information about the prime suspect in the shooting.
While the editor of Seattle Weekly, Mark Fefer, called The Times’ coverage “an inspiring bit of journalism” the actual value of this case is questionable.
Wave was then and is still in beta/preview- it was not open to the public and only people who were invited to the service could see or participate in the ‘manhunt.’ It is probably significant that the paper did not directly link to the Wave but was required to create a PDF of the conversation in order to show how the events happened.
Just over 500 people subscribed to the Wave, with the last comment placed online on November 30th. (In comparison a personal Wave I began gathered 163 followers over the same period)
However, technical criticisms aside The Times should be congratulated for their innovation in the use of Journalist-led citizen journalism.
