Writing for the Web

DDN Communities: Disaster Relief and Emergency Preparedness

The imagination and resourcefulness of the Web community continues to astound: DDN Communities: Disaster Relief and Emergency Preparedness offers links to tsunami- and relief-related sites and forums for individuals and groups. This is a very encouraging development. Thanks for this to the Guardian Newsblogs page, which is an always-lively survey of the blogosphere.

Tsunami Help

It's awesome and exhilarating to see that a blog can so quickly gather information and rally support about The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami. By all means make this a regular site. It even offers versions in half a dozen different languages, plus a link to a site that assesses the efficiency and transparency of various charitable organizations.

There you'll find Amazon.com's link to the American Red Cross raising millions of dollars before your eyes, and the emergency site for Medecins san Frontieres, which is already at work in Banda Aceh and other locations.

Words from a Catastrophe

On Sunday morning I went offline for a few days on Hornby Island, but I had already seen photos from te Maldives and marvelled that a disaster could still permit the instant transmission of news around the world.

Now I'm back and trying to catch up with what is far worse than a mere disaster. But even in the worst-hit areas, the human voice rises eloquently above the roar. Some of those voices are available at Scenes from a disaster on the Guardian Online.

Science Advocacy on the Web

Scientific debate usually takes place behind the doors of peer-reviewed journals, with something very different happening elsewhere in the media. This seems especially true in climate science, which is a politically charged subject thanks to global warming and the implications for an oil-based economic system.

So it's interesting to see a climate-science blog appear that tries to give a fair-minded treatment of the scientific issues without necessarily being peer-reviewed. Whatever your views on global warming and our role in it, you'll find RealClimate worth visiting. The text could use some careful copy editing, but the content is thoughtful and informative. Good links, too.

Web Writers and Editors For Hire

Occasionally someone emails me looking for a writer or editor to deal with a site. I've currently got all I can handle in that regard. But I've started a new TypeList of such folks, down on the right, with links to their sites. If nothing else, that will give you a sense of how they write.

If you're a writer or editor for the Web, drop me a note and I'll add you to the list. Of course I can make no guarantees about the professionalism, prose style, or sunny personalities of the persons listed. Still less about the reasonableness of the fees they charge.

The P.U.-litzer Prizes For 2004

We writers often take heart when we realize how bad our competition is. Then again, we may lose heart when we realize that even lousy writers get paid more, and reach more people, precisely because they're lousy. Journalist bloggers have done remarkably well in the past year, and they've made their print and TV/radio colleagues look pretty bad. Now come The P.U.-litzer Prizes For 2004, reminding us all of the goofs that made political discourse so awful in the last 12 months.

Jobs Writing Web Text

Sometimes I get queries from companies or Web designers, looking for someone to write, rewrite or edit the text on their sites. In some cases I can recommend someone, usually a local Vancouver writer. I can't take on such jobs myself—I already have a couple of them—but the latest inquiry made me think again about this.

If you're a professional writer/editor for the Web, drop me a note with links to some sites you've worked on and any specific conditions you require like a minimum rate of pay or type of site. I'll create a TypeList here, linking to your home page, and potential employers can use the list to find good writers.

Blogging Etiquette

Through Blogging Fun, which is a good site, I found another good site: Cafe Mama offers some excellent advice on blogging etiquette. I realized with consternation that I often break one of the more obvious rules: I provide a link to a good site without always mentioning the site where I found it. I will try to mend my ways.

Mediaweek.com

Just discovered this very interesting online trade magazine for the media business: mediaweek.com. I especially liked the story about the Parents Television Council, a Los Angeles-based organization that generates over 99% of the public complaints about indecency on TV.

The PTC posted 240,000 complaints last year and over a million so far this year...and three years ago, complaints were running at about 350 a year. Maybe I've missed something by not watching television?

The Year of the Blog

The word "blog," says BBC News Online, was the most looked-up word of the year on the Merriam-Webster dictionary website. That's just part of a good story on why 2004 was the year of the blog.