« The Intelligent Design Community | Main | More Science Writing Links »

May16
Five Easy Questions: Stephen DarkSyde, Part Three
DSC_0513_a.jpgHurricane Katrina changed journalism forever. When the disaster shut down the Times Picayune, reporters moved online to keep the paper alive.

Technorati traffic surged to nearly one and a half million posts a day as thousands of new blog readers searched for more information.

Major blogs like DailyKos played a big role in organizing that online response.  Looking back at the tragedy, Stephen DarkSyde remembered how his DailyKos readers banded together: "That was the really amazing thing from my perspective--the human angle, our community in action."

Stephen DarkSyde describes the disaster in a new book of DailyKos science essays entitled Kosmos: You Are Here. This week, he's the focus of my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions.  In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.

Jason Boog:
Towards the end of Kosmos, you give a suspenseful and heartbreaking first-person look at the experience of tracking Hurricane Katrina.  How was your reporting different? How can the blogosphere help scientists and science writers interact with natural disasters?

Stephen DarkSyde:
I live in Florida, so I pay attention to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) site, and hurricane activity in general...



In 2004, I went through three hurricanes in about one month, and that heightened my awareness. Katrina could be seen coming if you were standing on the moon. I was simply one of many people who was acutely aware of that body of information.

My reporting may have been a little different because blogging allows two-way interaction in real time. By reading comments and staying on top of e-mails, I was able to quickly find more information on pretty much anything I needed and post it—they act as a muse of sorts.

Early on I ran across a blog called The Weather Underground and wrote the bloggers there. One of them, Steve Gregory, wrote me back and I guess I convinced him I could reach a larger audience. This was on Saturday morning. Although the media was starting to pick up the story, they still didn't seem to understand what was coming down on the gulf coast.

Anyone with half a brain, Internet access, and the most ultra-basic knowledge of cyclonic storms could clearly look at the freely available sat data and ask a storm expert to help them understand the nuances—this storm was going to track over tepid water and get supercharged to catastrophic status right before drifting over the gulf coast.

This storm was going to plow the ground like a fifty mile wide F-5 tornado with a tsunami attached. It happened to be tracking dead into New Orleans--the worst place on the gulf it could possibly make landfall. Then it would wander up the Mississippi Valley and wreck structures well inland for hundreds of miles as it spawned floods and tornados.  

I couldn't believe every resource in the nation wasn't being thrown into that threat. I couldn't believe Bush wasn't on TV knocking heads to get the lead out and evacuate people. Helicopters, Humvees, convoys of boats and private vehicles and military trucks could have gotten a lot of people out of there.

My horror only grew as the storm gathered momentum and drew closer. In between blogging it I was reading how the wetlands reconstruction had been unfunded, how the levee projects were being drowned in Grover Norquist's bathtub. Everyone helping me on Daily Kos in comments could see it too. The picture was starkly unsubtle.


2 Comments/Trackbacks




» More Science Writing Links from ThePublishingSpot
As our week of science writing continues with Steven DarkSyde from DailyKos, I asked my journalist friend Apurva Narechania for some reading advice. He told us to check out Sean Carroll, a professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison who... [Read More]

» Five Easy Questions: Stephen DarkSyde, Part Four from ThePublishingSpot
Describing the political juggernaut of DailyKos, The Stranger had some clear cut advice for political leaders: pay attention to bloggers."If one looks at the entire liberal blogosphere, which encompasses DailyKos and about 70 other well-trafficke... [Read More]

submit a trackback

TrackBack URL for this entry:

post a comment

Name, Email Address, and URL are not required fields.





Comment Preview

« The Intelligent Design Community | Main | More Science Writing Links »

Advertise

sponsored ads



topics

subscribe


Prefer Email?
Subscribe below-

Enter your Email:


Powered by FeedBlitz What's this?

Current News

Support This Blog

blogroll


My site was nominated for Best Education Blog!

 


Know More Media - Writing / Speaking

know more media network

View Network Map

Network Feed List (OPML)

Know More Media Network
Feed


we support unitus

PRWeb

Influencer



ThePublishingSpot is a member of the Know More Media network of business related blogs.

Here are some current headlines from some of our business publications:

ProductivityGoal

CallCenterScript

AdHurl

TheBizofKnowledge


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740

HealthCareVox

BrainBasedBusiness


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740