You’re a finalist for a national Online News Association award!

Everyone who’s part of WSB – as a reader, commenter, tipster, writer, photo-sharer, Forums member, sponsor, events-calendar-item-sender, ANYTHING – is a finalist for a national award! Before today’s river of news sweeps us away, we wanted to share the details: WSB is a finalist for the Online News Association‘s “Community Collaboration” award. This is only the second year the national group of online journalists will be presenting this, as part of the annual national awards (full nominees list here); the first one last year went to our friends across the bay at My Ballard, so, inspired by their achievement, this year we decided to enter the competition on behalf of you and everybody else in the 27,000 local homes, businesses, and institutions who are part of this great news-covering/news-sharing/news-discussing adventure every week. Tough competition – the other finalists are projects of CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and north-of-the-border CBC – but we’ll find out who wins at the Online News Association’s convention in D.C. on October 30th. WSB isn’t the only Seattle finalist this year – our partners at the Seattle Times are also up for Breaking News, Large Site, for their Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Lakewood Police murders last fall. Anyway, we wanted to let you know, and once again, to say: THANK YOU. Your collaboration in turn helps inform thousands of your neighbors – often a story begins with just one tip, question, photo, e-mail, or a call to 206-293-6302, which is answered 24/7 – we may not always do your contributions justice, but we continue to try our best each day. Now back to the news!

DownOnAlki September 28, 2010 (10:11 am)

Woo hoo!!!
WSB is my fave

berge September 28, 2010 (10:25 am)

Congrats!

sarelly September 28, 2010 (10:42 am)

That’s great! Whenever I want to know what’s going on, I come here first.

HolyKow September 28, 2010 (10:43 am)

This is the best community site I have ever been to. We are a gifted bunch to have this site as a resource. Continued excessive thanks from me and all of my/our neighbors…I said it before and will post it again:

What do you think you are doing WSB?! Building communities or improving them….

I SAY BOTH!!!!

Diane September 28, 2010 (11:46 am)

Love the story title; you are so precious to include everyone; huge Congrats and THANK YOU!!!

Irukandji September 28, 2010 (12:00 pm)

Need a date for the ceremony?

cclarue September 28, 2010 (12:11 pm)

WSB Rocks!!! I was in Portland last Thursday for training and looked at the blog to see what was going on at home and it was in the middle of the shooting story and I learned that Highland park school was on lockdown where my 8 year old child was!!!! and quickly got in touch with her grandpa to let him know so he could get up to the school a few minutes early to get her> at that time it was thought that the shooter was on the loose… now we know that was not the case and that she had shot herself. and to the family i am so sorry. But to the blog wow how amazing that I could know what was going on from out of state before the people who were right here in Seattle not reading the west seattle blog!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you again TR and Crew!!!

WSB September 28, 2010 (12:40 pm)

CC – and that’s exactly what this is about – the lockdown information came from WSB’ers, not us. We were so caught up in covering what was happening at the scene plus monitoring the scanner, we did not have anyone to even think of calling schools regarding possible lockdown – but parents/others who had that information were posting in the comment thread. It is SO important that people continue to share their information – one of my favorite examples, in a non-emergency situation, is the totem-pole theft, where the Parks Department hadn’t even learned about it yet, when we started calling around because Lori from Arbor Heights e-mailed to say she and her son were driving down 35th and he noticed it was gone. (The Rotary Club apparently noticed around the same time and also started making inquiries, but we were all speaking to different people, and the investigation didn’t converge immediately.)
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Anyway, thanks all for the kind words, I will be there in DC to see if we win or not, since I was already being flown in for a pre-convention conference panel – last year they had a live stream (I remember yelling in excitement when seeing our Ballard friends Cory and Kate win), I’d imagine they will again this year … TR

bridge to somewhere September 28, 2010 (1:06 pm)

Wow, tough competition indeed! But somehow I’m not surprised, and frankly, my money’s on WSB. In fact, I am a user of CNN.com too and as a user I think they should be worried about the competition WSB is offering them.

flynlo September 28, 2010 (1:09 pm)

Congrats!!

Time to modify that line of links at the top of your home page from:

Home About Advertise Blogs…

to:

Home About Advertise AWARDS Blogs….!!!!

Garden_nymph September 28, 2010 (1:33 pm)

The West Seattle Blog deserves ALL the awards and attention that you have been given and more. I don’t know if this creation has exceeded your expectations, but it definitely has exceeded all expectation I ever had of a “neighborhood blog”! YOU are my source for accurate, immediate reporting. I can’t say enough about you and what the West Seattle Blog gives to our community. Best of luck!

WTF September 28, 2010 (3:49 pm)

Awesome news! You guys do a fantastic job. Keeping our keyboards crossed WSB is a *winner*. Good job…

add September 28, 2010 (5:12 pm)

So you will be in DC on October 30? Will you cover the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally? I know there will be at least one West Seattleite there! :)

And, congratulations. WSB is a real trailblazer!

redblack September 28, 2010 (8:30 pm)

a huge “thank you!” to TR and all sponsors for providing the bandwidth for this network. without them, we wouldn’t be here.
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and let me just say that WSB is far better and more palatable than any cookie-monster/ad-laden/flash-driven/mega-corporation-sponsored “news” site. like CNN.
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this is a true neighborhood effort, and i think it embraces the spirit of the first amendment. so let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back for keeping it real, vibrant, and relevant.

WSB September 29, 2010 (2:21 am)

ADD, wish we could check out the big event – but the conference continues all day on Oct. 30 and there are so many amazing people leading sessions there, with discussions and presentations that we hope will yield information we can use to do a better job, that we will pretty much be shut inside all day! But still covering the news, so if that rally-attending West Seattleite cares to share photos, we’ll publish ’em! – TR

Cami September 29, 2010 (12:15 pm)

That’s so GREAT!!! Glad I’ve been a fan since the BEGINNING! :)

susieq September 29, 2010 (8:00 pm)

Congrats WSB, Tracy, Patrick, Junior Reporter, contributing reporters, and community!! You are so cool, you don’t even know! When you first started up, I kinda dug my heels in, refusing to get my news from this icky new format that takes electricity and a blue screen and all… but your immediacy and brevity won me over – along with your constant reporting presence at community meetings (sometimes boring!), special events (not always so special), youth sporting events (I don’t even have kids), and neighborhood celebrations (puddles, puppies, and everything!). And the community contributions and content make it bubble up instead of trickle down.
Now, I constantly reference you – “didn’t you read about it in the blog?” “look it up in the WS blog,” and “just bookmark the WSB” – are my usual. Best wishes and congrats! You help make life in West Seattle the best!

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