Writing for the Web

An Online History

My old friend Chuck Davis is the author of many books, including The Vancouver Book and The Greater Vancouver Book. Now he's gone online with a remarkable project: a year-by-year chronicle of Vancouver. If you're interested in the history of this city, the site is endlessly fascinating. And the project itself is a good demonstration of how to put history online. Visitors to The History of Metropolitan Vancouver will find it's up to 1939.

Watching the Watchdogs

Such is my naivete, I don't know who Ted Rall is. But I found a reference to a recent online column of his about blogs and the new McCarthyism in which he argues that most US political blogs are indeed right-wing, further limiting the scope of American political discourse.

Worse, says Rall, the bloggers have no notable journalistic qualifications, but claim to be keeping the mainstream media honest. Instead they're just adding to the intimidation of the media.

Not sure where I stand on his assertion; I know of plenty of left-wing US blogs (well, left-wing by US standards) that damn and blast the neocons and all their works. I do share Rall's impression that the right-wingers are much more abusive toward their critics than the lefties are towards theirs.

Free Arash and Mojtaba!

Arash and Mojtaba are two Iranians in jail for what they said on their blogs. That low rumble you hear is bloggers worldwide mobilizing to defend their colleagues. For details, visit the Committee to Protect Bloggers.

Face to Face in the Blogosphere

The "Northern Voice" conference of Vancouver-area bloggers took place this past weekend (I was teaching a workshop, so I couldn't attend). You can read about it on The Tyee: The Blogosphere New World Disorder.

Moles (and Bloggers) in the US Media

The Guardian Unlimited has a long, thought-provoking article about the sad and compromised state of the US mainstream media. The mole, the US media and a White House coup ranges from the Gannon scandal to the role of bloggers in shaping the content and direction of American political discourse. As the article asks: "One question is dominating US newsrooms and television studios: ignored, scandalised and now corrupted, just what is America's mainstream media for anymore?"

Blog Discourse Categorized

A blog I hadn't known about has published a very entertaining list of dismissals of opponents' arguments. Very much worth a visit.

Writing for Websites

This week I'll talk about writing for the Web with my Tourism Degree students, for most of whom this is a new field. I prepared a handout for them that visitors here will probably find pretty elementary, but if anyone does find it helpful, then good. It's a 5-page Word file.

Update, March 2: The original post had an omission (giving me yet another reason to urge my students not to proofread off the screen!), so here it is again, corrected and in both Word and PDF formats.

Download Writing for Websites.doc

Download Writing for Websites.pdf

Webwriting in Brazil

A Brazilian blogger, Ananias Ribeiro, is taking part in a conference on writing for the Web. It sounds like great fun—I had a wonderful time with Brazilian Webwriters in São Paulo in 2002, and I wish I could go back for this event. Boa sorte, amigos!

Dying Online

BBC science correspondent Ivan Noble died this week at 37. He had been writing about his battle with a brain tumor for two years, and his last column, a model of concise honesty, appeared just a few days ago. You can read the BBC obituary here with a link to his column.

He was a brave young man, and by stepping into this unlikely new medim he shared his experience with countless people around the world. Most of us report the trivia of our lives; he reported, and enhanced, the significance of his death.

Requiescat in pace, Ivan, and thank you.