Here’s what’s been happening in the worlds of freelance writing and online media this week:

Web-only news awards watch – The Pulitzer Prizes, the Oscars of the journalism business, will be announced on Monday and for the first time Web-only publications are eligible. According to this Editor&Publisher article, at least five online news organizations submitted entries in the Web news category: the St. Louis Beacon, Voice of San Diego, MinnPost.com, ProPublica and Center for Independent Media. Winners will be announced at 3 p.m. EDT.

From a two newspaper to a two Website town? – One month after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer shut down its print operation and moved online only comes word of a second Web-based news enterprise in the Emerald City. A group of former PI journalists – not the same group still running SeattlePI.com – have launched a non-profit news site called SeattlePostGlobe.org. According to this Seattle Times story, the PostGlobe will be staffed by 20 former PI employees and will run on reader contributions, a la the public radio model. The enterprise is partnering with SeattleWeekly.com and the city’s public TV station, KCTS/9.

In case LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook aren’t enough – Journalists now have a social network to call their own. The UK-based Journalist Social Network reports signing up 600 writers in the first weeks of its launch. Like existing social networks, members can create profiles, read member blogs, watch videos and join interest groups. The site’s owned by London-based Chatter Ltd., which has launched 100 niche online networks. A quick peek at the site’s online forums showed chatter on Journalist Network was still on the light side.

How much is a blog post worth? – The Blog Herald has as detailed an analysis as I’ve ever seen on how much bloggers are paid to blog. It’s part of a series on blogging jobs the six-year-old blogging industry new site is running. It’s riveting stuff, and depressing. Nobody’s getting rich blogging on a fee-for-post basis, according to Lorelle VanFossen, the article’s author. Her conclusion:

If you want to blog for a living, don’t take just any blogging job or low paying jobs. It isn’t worth it. Get paid what you are worth so every blogger within the industry can get a chance to make a decent living and not be undercut by those blogging for $5 a post. Consider your expertise and ask for what you deserve.

Sign of the times – In case you needed any more convincing you should pitch queries elsewhere, U.S. magazine ad pages fell 26 percent in the first quarter, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Ad revenue and pages declined in the top 12 magazine advertising categories, according to the magazine industry research group.

More free ONA memberships – The Online News Association gave away 31 memberships to recently laid off journalists as part of its Support a Journalist campaign that ultimately looks to raise $90,000 for free memberships for displaced reporters. Get details about donating or applying to the program here.

Twitter tools of the week:

• Hootsuite – A Twitter app that lets you manage multiple accounts, pre-publish tweets and add multiple editors to a single account.
• Muck Rack – Another list of journalists on Twitter. This one’s brand new, still fairly small, and so far, only includes journalists working at major news outlets. The list can be sorted alphabetically or by outlet or links.

UPDATED ON FEB. 28 – News from the online news business this week. Read all about it:

The Rocky Mountain News shuts down forever, leaving another major American city a one-paper town. Rival Denver Post pays tribute in Rocky’s Last Run.

Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle and other dailies, attempts to avert closing any of its papers by announcing a precedent-setting deal with Helium, the Web content mill site. Helium’s “citizen journalists” will produce local and lifestyle stories in a test roll out with two Hearts papers in Connecticut.

In magazineland, Mr. Magazine, aka Samir Husni, a journalism prof and head of the j-school at the University of Mississippi, declares America’s magazine publishing model DOA and announces a new center dealing with magazine and print innovation called Magazine Innovation Center.

The Columbia Journalism Review jumps onto the magazine reinvention bandwagon too, getting a $230,000 MacArthur grant to study how magazines can adopt best practices and improve editorial content on their Websites.

Speaking of CJR, the magazine’s Megan Garber turns in a cheeky Dear Abby-style advice column to explain the do’s and don’ts of  using Twitter while poking fun at the techies, TV news stars and celebs who’re quickly populating the au courant microblogging service.

One more I forgot about – Jonathan Weber, founder and CEO of NewWest.Net a Rocky Mountain West news site, and former EIC at The Industry Standard during the dot-com boom, debuted a weekly column on The Big Money about the realities of running a Web 2.0 business. Weber’s a great thinker and a great writer (disclaimer: I’ve worked with him before so I’m biased) – a definite must read.