Web 2.0 Covers the Southern California Wildfires
I’m awed by the way that news organizations are covering the fires in Southern California this week. This kind of thing is near to my heart since I began my short career as a news reporter covering the Santa Barbara Painted Cave fire in 1990, and then spent a few years after that chasing big fires (among other things) in Ventura County.
As is often the case with fast-moving big stories, we’re seeing news organizations peel back their normal editorial process in favor of a just-in-time approach to getting the word out. They’re using the new tools of the trade — blogs, certainly, but also some amazing work with customized Google Maps. The L.A. Times even set up a Twitter page for brief updates that you can get on your mobile phone. Amazing. I wish I had access to all these tools when I was reporting the news 17 years ago.
