This comes from the Poynter blog.....

twitter.com KPBS San Diego is offering fire news updates via Twitter -- possibly the best use of this service I've ever seen.

While much of Southern California burns, online news staffs and citizen journalists definitely aren't fiddling around. Here's a quick roundup of some of the more intriguing efforts:

• KPBS, the NPR affiliate in San Diego, offers updates on Twitter. This is probably the best use I've ever seen for Twitter. It's simple to subscribe to get the updates by cell, or check them on the Web. Undoubtedly useful for evacuees whose only contact with the outside world right now might be their cell phones.
• More from KPBS. The station has also put together a Google Map of the fire area that's more sophisticated than what the LA Times offers. Note the variety of icons and information types, the highway and train closures, the burn area demarcation, and the map legend. (Click the yellow pin to see the legend.)
• And Still I Persist This blog written by three San Diego-area information technology professionals normally covers an eclectic range of topics, but currently is publishing considerable citizen journalism and other information about the wildfires around San Diego.
• Barboni.org, a personal weblog started by a resident of San Marcos, Calif. (north of San Diego), features another kind of map -- Google Earth overlaid with data from the U.S Forest Service and other sources.
• Help in San Diego This assistance-oriented blog, very reminiscent of NOLA.com during Hurricane Katrina, was set up by the San Diego Union Tribune site SignOn San Diego. It's just a simple Blogspot blog -- which shows that if you don't have the in-house tools to do something important online fast, don't hesitate to use an available service. Tools should never limit your journalistic choices.
• Housley in the House. This blog, by Los Angeles-based FOX News TV correspondent Adam Housley, is currently featuring frequent updates from the field and raw video footage of the fires and evacuations.
• NowPublic's "Emergencies" section is offering a steady stream of citizen journalism, photography, and other kinds of "crowd-powered news" from and about the affected regions. I found this inquiry under the "news wanted" section intriguing.
• PR Newswire has created a special page of current press releases from businesses, governments, nonprofits and other organizations. Jonathan Evans of PR Newswire said this is "a service we're providing for free to those needing to send out announcements."
• Flickr group, The Southern California Fires 2007 currently has 169 members and over 1500 images. Not all of these photos are great, but there's an amazing diversity of subject matter, communities, and views represented.

What kinds of innovative online coverage of the fires are you seeing today? Please comment below.

(Thanks to the members of Poynter's Online News discussion group for tips to some of the items above.)

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Today, literally hundreds of square kilometers of Southern California -- Los Angeles to San Diego -- are burning. Some very alert newspapers and radio stations, though, are using Google Maps and a program called Twitter (www.twitter.com) to update the maps on a regular basis. A good example, I think, of applied tools of analytic journalism.

Southern California fires on Google Maps

CALL FOR ENTRIES:

Philip Meyer Journalism Award
postmark deadline: October 31, 2007

The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism; the Knight Chair in Journalism at Arizona State University; and IRE are proud to invite you to participate in the Philip Meyer Journalism Award, a contest created to recognize the best journalism done using social science research methods.

Three awards will be given - a first, second and third place - to recognize the best work using techniques that are part of precision journalism, computer-assisted reporting and social science research. The awards include cash prizes: $500 for first, $300 for second, and $200 for third.   Eligible entries must have been published or broadcast between Oct. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2007.

The awards are in honor of Philip Meyer, Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Meyer is the author of Precision Journalism, the seminal 1972 book (and subsequent editions) that focused growing numbers of journalists on the idea of using social science methods to do better journalism. He pioneered in using survey research as a reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers to explore the causes of race riots in the 1960s.

The contest also helps identify the techniques and resources used to complete each story. Entries are placed in the IRE Resource Center, allowing members to learn from each other.

For more information, please call the IRE Resource Center at (573) 882-3364 or refer to these helpful links on our website:   

Philip Meyer Award FAQ: http://www.ire.org/meyeraward/meyerFAQ.html

Download a PDF of the entry form: http://www.ire.org/meyeraward/PhillipMeyerEntryForm07.pdf

Past winners:

2006: http://www.ire.org/meyeraward/06winners.html

2005: http://www.ire.org/history/pr/2005MeyerAward.html

It's important to note that Philip Meyer Journalism Award is unique in its efforts to avoid conflicts of interest. Work that included any significant role by a member of the IRE Board of Directors or an IRE contest judge may not be entered in the contest. This often represents a significant sacrifice on the part of the individual — and sometimes an entire newsroom. The IRE membership appreciates this devotion to the values of the organization.

Yes, call us fickle and lacking in loyalty when it comes to note-taking and research organization tools.  Does anyone else remember the 5x8 cards with holes punched on all four perimeters?  You entered "tags" or keywords by clipping out the outer edge of the hole, and when you needed to find a particular note card, a knitting needle-sized wire was inserted into the whole pack.  Shake the cards and the desired note fell out.  Sometimes.

Since going digital 25 years ago, we've tried dozens of tools to try and bring some order to what we've turned up online and need to save.  Most were fine innovations and advances at the time, but there was often something that didn't quite meet all of our needs or desires.  That still might be true, but a new entry in the research management derby (thanks to the cite from The Scout Report quoted below) delivers up an impressive new tool.

Zotero

http://www.zotero.org/

"It can be hard to keep Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe straight at times, and if you are working on an academic paper that incorporates both of these august characters, you probably want to keep those research sources in good order. Thanks to Zotero, it is very easy to do just that. Zotero is a Firefox extension that helps users collect, manage, and cite their research sources. Zotero can automatically capture citation information from web pages, store PDF files, and also export these citations with relatively ease. This very helpful extension is compatible with computers running Firefox 2.0." [KMG]

http://openstreetmap.org/ --- OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you. OpenStreetMap allows you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth. OpenStreetMap's hosting is kindly supported by the UCL VR Centre and bytemark. -- tj

Andy Crain, of the Cincinnati Enquirer, just posted an interesting item on the NICAR listserv related to an innovative integration of news stories and JAGIS. Check it out.

All, The Cincinnati Enquirer has just launched a database application we hope will become our primary vehicle for providing highly local database content to our readers. We call it CinciNavigator. It's a map-based application where users can search currently about half a dozen types of data from numerous sources (much more to come), updated as often as hourly, including stories published in the paper. Check it out, and please share any comments/criticisms/suggestions. Thanks! http://data.cincinnati.com/navigator/

Andy Crain
The Cincinnati Enquirer
acrain@cincinnati.com