5 incredible 'facts' about Wales



Curiously, given that they sound the same, Wales has nothing to do with whales, the water-based mammals used for soap and cosmetics.

Wales is ruled with an iron fist by the Prince of Wales, a bearded, threatening man who demands a fatted pig and a bushel of corn from each household every month.

Welsh rugby hero Gavin Henson is a saint in Vanuatu, where it is forbidden to look directly at him.

Not many people know that before St. Patrick rid Ireland of snakes, he chased all the vowels out of Wales.

The Welsh language has 42 words for 'Come on then, you English halfwit."

Our first online lecture at Cardiff Journalism School was given by Amanda Powell, head of BBC Wales Online. In all honesty, there wasn't much about her lecture that really struck a chord with me. Of course, she has a great knowledge of online journalism and was able to give us a glimpse of the realities of internet news. For that i'm grateful, but at times it seemed like she was preaching to the converted.
We are all (I hope) aware of the changing face of journalism in the digital age. This was also not the first time we had been told that the future for journalists is uncertain. We are being advised to prepare for battle without being given any weapons or told where the battlefield is.
The warning has been sounded time and again that Fleet Street is no more. Three hour liquid lunches are a thing of the past; cigarette smokers will be punished with public flogging in the streets of Wapping. That's all very well, but has anyone stopped to consider the implications of all of this for us whippersnapper reporters? Given the competition for jobs in newspapers these days, we are under as much pressure to perform as trainee lawyers or civil servants, but with a fraction of the financial prospects. Of course, that isn't why most of us are doing it, but the point still stands: A young journalist nowadays can't help but be insecure, unless they are absurdly overconfident.
Consider the pitfalls we face: Defamation law has become so opaque that it can be interpreted in ten different ways by ten different judges; the advent of online journalism and soon, mobile phone journalism, means that a reporter must have more than one style of writing in his/her quiver; a libellous statement made against a global corporation or group can be actionable in any country in the world. An unwitting reporter may therefore find themself facing civil proceedings all over the world. These are just a few of the distinctly new and potentially disastrous problems we face.
All of this sounds like a complaint. It isn't. The insecurity makes for a more exciting ride. But it is worth bearing in mind that today's reporter must be alert to dangers that our predecessors never encountered. They claim to be acutely aware of this: don't forget to remind them of it.

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome. I'm Rob Davies, a Londoner in Cardiff with a fondness for the written word but no real ability to manipulate it as yet. This is the first of many entries, but hopefully the only one with no real point. The aim, broadly speaking, is to comment on the process of becoming a journalist. It all seems rather egocentric to me and this blog is my only flirtation with internet self-publicisation. Normally i couldn't think of anything worse than advertising myself to the world. But as a trainee journalist at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, it would be laziness not to. Feel free to comment, especially if you have a talent for comic invective or can correct me on something.