By Ed Stannard, Community Engagement Editor

estannard@nhregister.com 

Twitter: @edstannardnhr, @nhrvoices 

Facebook: Ed Stannard-Register, Your Open Newsroom 

Have you seen Moe, the dog with the camera on his back? He’s the star of photographer Melanie Stengel’s new blog, Ruff Cuts.

Melanie has recruited Moe, her Basenji mix housemate, as collaborator and camera-pooch. Their “Tales of Greater New Haven” seen from a dog’s-eye view, is just one of the new blogs launched by New Haven Register staffers recently.

The blogs are pretty diverse. Moe, webcam attached to his back, will portray the New Haven area’s world of dogs “and maybe a few cats,” according to Stengel.

Jesse Haight, a waitress at The Place in Guilford, takes a photo of Moe, who is is also filming her. (Melanie Stengel, New Haven Register)

Another new blog is much more serious in tone.

Michelle Tuccitto Sullo, the Register’s investigations editor, has launched A Voice for Victims, which offers support and resources to those who have been victimized by crime or in some other way. Michelle, who recently reported about how convicts may apply for pardons without the knowledge of their victims, also runs the NHR Investigations blog.

There have been other blogs launched recently by our staff. There’s New Haven Eats by multimedia journalist Mara Lavitt, which focuses in pictures, video and text on a different city restaurant each week. East Haven and Branford reporter Jennifer Swift also recently started a blog, The East Haven & Branford Notebook, intended to increase conversation about the issues and events in those two shoreline towns.

Our staff-produced blogs, along with the dozens in our Community Media Lab, total more than 100 on subjects ranging from sports to family issues to politics. You can find them at www.nhregister.com/blogs.

If you have a blog you’d like to include in our media lab, or if you’d like to start one on a topic you’re passionate about, let me know. Email me at estannard@nhregister.com or call me at 203-789-5743.

And, as Stengel says in her introductory Ruff Cuts video, “If you want a camera dog with his paw on the pulse of the pet community, just say Moe.”