tomroyal.com

Hot news in The Telegraph on the 10th March 2010 – but it was also in Computeractive way back on the 7th April 2009. That's what happens when you write up "news" based on a blog post on a US television network's website.

Also, note the Telegraph's claim that "critics warned it was an invasion of privacy". I called several privacy groups when writing my story last year, and none gave two hoots – none of the data collected is personally identifiable.

Still, makes a change from theme park PR stories.

This article about marriage is pretty depressing. Not because the number of marriages is falling, you understand. That doesn't really bother me. But let's take a look.

For the first time ever fewer than 2 in 100 women, over the age of 16, got married in a single year. In 2008 the marriage rate for women fell from 2 per cent to 1.96 per cent, less than half the rate 25 years ago.

The rate for men has shown a similar decline, according to the annual figures published by the Office for National Statistics.

Which is all fine, except perhaps from the commas after "women" and "16". Onward.

The figures highlight how marriage has substantially fallen out of favour. From a peak in 1940, when 426,1000 young couples – spurred on by the urgency of World War II – married for the first time, just 147,130 marriages in 2008 were where both partners were getting wed for the first time.

In total, just 228,204 marriages took place during 2008 in England and Wales.

The pedant in me wonders if all 426,000 (assuming the "1" in the figure is a typo) first marriages in 1940 were spurred on by the Second World War. The rest of me wonders whether an increase in second marriages actually suggests that marriage has fallen into favour – so much so that people are getting hitched twice, no less. But more importantly:

The escalating cost of weddings, and the failure of the Government to support the institution of marriage were among the factors blamed. Though, long-term changes in society, especially the increase in the number of women working and their desire to get married later in life, are also key factors.

And here's the serious bit. Who exactly blamed the Government, or the increased cost? Not the source ONS document. Not anyone named here. So who – the author of this piece? Ditto for the "key factors".

The average age of women marrying for the first time has nearly hit the symbolic 30-year-old barrier, at 29.9, up from 29.8 during 2007. For men, the average age of getting married for the first time was 32.1 years, up from 32 the previous year.

Many expressed sadness at the statistics.

Blah average ages blah. But wait, many have expressed sadness. Hold on for the avalanche of researchers, politicians, religious busybodies and the like:

Dave Percival, a campaigner for marriage, said: "Living together and marriage are increasingly seen as the same by the public, yet the outcomes are radically different. Two thirds of all the first marriages in 2008 can be expected to last a lifetime. Less than 10 per cent of cohabiting relationships last even to their tenth anniversary."

Or just Dave, as it turns out, who is a 'campaigner for marriage'. He has an awkwardly named website, www.2-in-2-1.co.uk, and appears to be involved with www.marriage-week-hosting.co.uk, which put out a press release in 2004. And that's it. Nobody else is mentioned, and there's no quote from anyone who might dare to suggest that the declining rate of marriages is really nothing to be too concerned about.

Incidentally, that statistic about cohabiting relationships appears to come from a study by the University of Essex in 1998, so it's so far out of date that we could phone the surveyed couples up and see how they're doing after 20 years.

And so we have unreferenced opinion, a quote that's barely attributed – where's the link to Dave's website that would show readers who he is and what he does? – and a complete lack of balance. Happy Valentine's day, world. And, not that it matters a jot to the argument, I've been happily married since 2006 – I just don't feel that everyone should be obliged to do the same.

“[Esquire] thought they made their statement where there should be copy and type all over the cover where you can’t read a goddamn word. I don’t get it. What are you trying to say to me? What’s the point? Is that an idea?

“Why do you put all those cover lines on? They say, ‘Well, if I don’t get somebody interested in this one, I’ll get somebody interested in that one.’

“The covers [of The New Yorker] are the only thing that looks different on the newsstand. David Remnick, three or four years ago asked me, ‘Gee, do you think I should be using photography on the covers now?’ I said, ‘What, are you out of your fucking mind?’

This Blackbook interview with George Lois, who designed Esquire from '62 to '72, is fascinating. Recommended to anyone with an interest in magazines, and especially those who work on them – and covers in particular.

.. or is there something really, horribly wrong with the first three paragraphs of this news story? Reproduced below in case it (hopefully) gets changed:

Just to be clear: the lede's OK, if a slightly tacky sensationalist way to report a serious crime (rape is rape, no matter where, or in which fast-food chain, it occurred). The second para could really do with some further explanation (found further down in the story), but then there's the third, which starts "The 33-year-old who is an asylum seeker from an African country".

As far as I'm concerned, this is completely extraneous and should have been struck down with a red pen (or on screen, in this case) by the first editor that happened across it. Unless the writer is about to contend that the man's immigration status or continent of origin are somehow relevant information to the crime – and I'd love to know how that could be – it shouldn't be here.

Now, I hate complaining. Completely fucking hate it. Don't do it. But, in the hope that an editor might see the complaint, take a look at the article and update it accordingly, I made my first ever complaint to the BBC. Here it is, as formatted by the BBC's automatic email thingy:

{Feedback Type:} I would like to… Make a complaint

{Summary:} Identification of nationality and asylum seeker status is
unwarranted

{URL:} http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8350714.stm

{Complaint:} This is a story about an alleged rape. The third para
begins:

"The 33-year-old who is an asylum seeker from an African country"

This is utterly irrelevant to the story and has no place in the article,
let alone in such a prominent position.

And, credit where it's due, I got a reply. Sadly, though, it comprised of the following:

It is the only information we have about the identity of the suspect in this case; if it been said in court he was a candlestick maker from County Tyrone we would have reported that too.

So, here's the thing. These are the conclusions I've come to:

1) This story shouldn't have been published as-is. Leaving aside all other complaints for one second, the information given in the third para is unrelated and should be cut.

2) identifying the accused as "an asylum seeker from an African country" just barely skirts around clause ten of the NUJ's code of conduct:

A journalist shall only mention a person's age, race, colour, creed, illegitimacy, marital status (or lack of it), gender or sexual orientation if this information is strictly relevant. A journalist shall neither originate nor process material which encourages discrimination, ridicule, prejudice or hatred on any of the above-mentioned grounds.

.. and, code regardless, I'm amazed that any journalist or editor's sense of ethics would permit it.

3) The response I got from the BBC doesn't address the complaint, instead making an unrelated comparison – it's standard court reporting to print the gender, age and approximate location of the accused unless this is restricted in some way, but not to mention immigration status or a "continent of origin".

4) The story should be fixed or pulled.

Would welcome any comments on whether you agree or not.

I'm researching an article on the history of broadband. A few interesting things I've come across:

• In 2000 a 512Mbps Blueyonder connection cost £50/month
• In 2001 broadband accounted for less than 1% of UK internet connections. 81% were dial-up (ONS)
• By 2005 half of UK connections were broadband (ONS)
• In 2009 56% of UK households have broadband access (ONS), and the average UK connection speed is 3746Kbps (Akamai)
• Virgin is currently testing <200Mbps FTTC, with BT working on VDSL.

Not bad going. But on the other hand: the average connection speed in South Korea, Q1 2009 is 10956Kbps, with SK and Japan both offering >100Mbps consumer products today (SK uses VDSL, Japan has a strange FTTC-like infrastructure). That's fast.

I spent Tuesday rushing to France and back on the Eurostar, attending a Dell press conference at Versailles. About three hours in I spotted this plaque: it turns out the hotel ballroom was used to draft the famous Treaty – now it's a site for business meetings.

At the end of the afternoon a few of us had an hour spare, so we went around the corner to the palace. It's predictably spectacular:

.. and the gardens are something else:

.. but sadly we had no time to do any more than take a quick glance around. At 7pm it was back in a taxi, back to the Gare du Nord, back on the Eurostar and back to London. Eighteen hours, about 1,000km, three press conferences, one interview, two news stories, three glasses of wine underneath the channel and twelve photos here. Not bad for one day.

An incomplete assortment of things I like:

1. Ascending really tall buildings in cities to gawk from the top
2. Taking photographs from said tall buildings
3. Playing with expensive cameras and lenses
4. All of the above in one morning

Today I was lucky enough to achieve #4 on that list, as Nikon announced its new D5000 DSLR* in the Paramount private members' club on the top of Centre Point. It was a bit gloomy outside with lots of cloud, but the views were still great. A handful more are on Flickr; I'll dig through the rest at the weekend.

* In a nutshell: 720p video, D60-like body, swivelling LCD, no AF motor, 11-point AF, £720 or £800 for the kit. I'll reserve judgment until I give it a proper try.

The Easter-themed segment I filmed for the BBC last week went out this morning and repeats over this weekend. It's not yet on iPlayer, so here's a low resolution clip:

(Video)

And while on the subject of shameless self-promotion, here's the thing I did for ITN the other week:

If you write about the same subject for long enough you'll find that there are a few short phrases that you have to repeat with such depressing regularity that they trip from fingers to word processor without so much as a detour through your brain. And then there are the ones you never thought you'd use in copy, such as:

"an obscene photo of a man dressed as a rabbit and a female friend"

The reason for this odd phrase going into Word today, and a SFW version of the photo in question, can be found here. Another interesting thing I learned while researching this piece: the first widespread politically motivated virus, which spread widely in 1989, was known as the WANK worm.

This account of the final days of the Seattle Post Intelligencer (one of the late, great US regional dailies – it even had an office with a big spinny globe on the top) makes for fascinating, if depressing, reading.