Disaster News Site Focuses on People

Posted on October 5, 1998

It has been a baptism by fire for the new online Disaster News Network, launching this week in the midst of Hurricane Georges. "We never imagined we'd be trying to put the finishing touches on this site at the same time our staff was writing five new stories a day about a major hurricane," says Jim Skillington, director of the nonprofit site.

"DNN provides an excellent resource for sharing the faith community's role in domestic emergency response," said Rick Augsburger, director of the emergency response office of Church World Service (CWS), one of the sponsoring partners.

"It has become an excellent medium for telling the story of disaster survivors and response efforts. Church World Service hopes the site will continue to become a valuable information sharing tool for disaster survivors and response organizations alike." In addition to home page articles about breaking disaster news, a unique section of regional disaster pages continues to provide in-depth news and up-to-date information about each disaster.

News on the site changes at least daily -- more often if a breaking disaster is being covered. The homepage usually highlights 10 stories, including several featured leads. All of the stories are written by DNN. Members of the news staff are located across the country, but meet regularly by telephone. All of the writers have previous wire service and/or daily newspaper experience.