We won an award
Some of you may know that I write for another blog - Cancer Research UK's Science Update blog - as part of my day job. There, I write about new cancer research together with my colleagues Kat and Henry. Tonight, we won a Science Communication award from the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) for our work on the blog, in the category of Online Research.
Blogging for an organisation is a very different ball-game to this - you have to still be readable and engaging while exercising a certain amount of restraint in order to maintain the charity's reputation and tone of voice. Still, it's a very rewarding experience and the judges tonight praised the blog's chatty tone, excellent writing, direct engagement with supporters, and in particular, its myth-busting headline-correcting posts. We're all really proud.
I rote for teh Grauniad
In other news, a couple of weeks ago, I was approached by the Guardian about the post I wrote on suicide attacks and religion. Andrew Brown, who edits the Belief section of the Comment is Free site liked the piece and asked me to respin it for the Guardian. It's a great case-study of the mainstream media taking the blogosphere more seriously. I've seen few examples in the past of a blog post being converted into a piece for the MSM. Hopefully, it won't be the last.
It may also interest readers here to compare the comments in the original post and the Guardian one. Quite frankly, this blog's readers (that'll you fine people) more clearly understood the study and and were generally better at keeping the discussion on topic. You all rock.
Buy OpenLab
And finally, OpenLab 2008 is finally available for sale! Jenny Rohn did a wonderful job in editing it and Dave Ng and Glendon Mellow have designed by far the most attractive cover yet. A worthwhile purchase for your bookshelf and if it's any extra incentive, there's a piece from this blog in it.
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Congratulations.
As for online comments on the Guardian I've been pretty depressed whenever I've looked at any comments concerning religion on it. Seems to bring out the rabidly anti religious crowd. Not that I have a problem with people not liking religion, but some individuals come across as very, very shouty.
Congrats.
The comments here (and elsewhere in the science blogosphere) are so much better than mainstream media sites. I have pretty much stopped reading CBC news because the unrelenting soul crushing idiocy of the comments. I have tried reading the articles (which can also be pretty stupid) while not scrolling down too far but eventually my morbid curiosity gets the better of me. I know they're not a representative sample of my country(wo)men - but it gets me down.
Couldn't agree more about the majority of mainstream media comments. See this wonderful site for continual mockery of the commenters on BBC's Have Your Say forums.
Also this
Congratulations!!
Congrats on the award!
You're damning us with faint praise. The Guardian's comments section is worse than youtube's one.
Proud... and hungover. You were wise to go home early, Henry and I got a bit rowdy...
Nice one on teh Gruan as well - keep up the sterling work,
K