Although we’re typically not ones to toot our own horns, we thought we’d mention this before you hear it second hand.  Earlier this evening, cdguy and I were honored to receive the Seattle Police Department’s Citizen Appreciation Award for our reporting on crime issues in the neighborhood.   We’d like to thank the department and Officer Mark Jamieson from the media office who nominated us.  You probably recognize his name from many of our stories, as he has been super helpful in giving us timely and detailed information on the big events that happen around here.   He’s put up with a lot of stupid questions from two non-journalist software engineers, and has been a big part of getting good, accurate stories out to all of our readers.

And I think a lot of the credit goes to our other contributors and commenters.  The introduction to the award specifically mentioned the way you have pulled together and organized yourselves here on the site in the wake of the violence we’ve seen in recent months.  So please keep it up and help us all build a stronger, safer community.

We’d also like to extend a big congratulations to our friends at West Seattle Blog who also received an award for their coverage of crime in their part of the city.   They’ve forged a unique information sharing relationship with the SW precinct that should be a model of how the city can work with new media to keep their citizens informed.

Finally, there were many others who received an award tonight who did things far more interesting and brave than two geeks sitting in an office all day typing out neighborhood news stories.  They helped save lives, apprehended criminals, and many other things that you don’t expect ordinary citizens to do.   We’ll attach a link here once the Seattle Channel gets a video of the ceremony up online so you can hear all of their stories.

Thanks!

Update: The PI has a list of all award recipients.  Check it out