Nicholas Rory Cellan-Jones (born 17 January 1958; "Cellan" pronounced ) is a British journalist and a former

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

technology correspondent. After working for the BBC for 40 years, he announced in August 2021 he was leaving the corporation in late October.

Early life and education

Rory Cellan-Jones was born in London in 1958. His father

James Cellan Jones Alan James Gwynne Cellan Jones (13 July 1931 – 30 August 2019) was a British television and film director. From 1963, he directed over 50 television series and films, specialising in dramas. He was particularly associated with the "Classic Ser ...

was a BBC TV director and film director, and his mother was Sylvia Rich, a BBC secretary. His half-brother

Simon Cellan Jones Simon Cellan Jones (born January 1963) is a British television director and film director. Career Simon Cellan Jones began his career as a production assistant in the mid-1980s, working on series such as ''Edge of Darkness''. By the late 1980s he ...

is a film director. Rory was born out of wedlock and was unacquainted with his father and half-siblings until adulthood. Cellan Jones, James.
Forsyte and Hindsight: Screen Directing for Pleasure and Profit
'. Kaleidoscope Publishing, 2006. pp. 14–15. Rory uses a hyphen in his surname as his paternal grandparents did; his father had dropped the hyphen. Cellan-Jones was educated at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2–19 Independent school (United Kingdom), independent, Day school, day and boarding school for Single-sex education, boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a Public school (United Kingdom), public school, it began as the Col ...

, an independent school for boys in

Dulwich Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half ...

in south London, from 1967–76. He attended

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

, obtaining a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages in 1981, and automatic MA three years later.

Career

After beginning his BBC career as a researcher on the Leeds edition of ''Look North'', he worked in the corporation's London television newsroom for three years before gaining his first on-screen role at BBC Wales. He later returned to London and became the business and economics correspondent, appearing on ''

The Money Programme ''The Money Programme'' is a finance and business affairs television programme on BBC Two which ran between April 1966 and November 2010. It was first broadcast on 5 April 1966 and presented by "commentators" (financial journalists) William Davis ...

'' between 1990 and 1992. After the dot com crash of 2000, he wrote the book ''Dot.bomb''. He has covered issues such as

Black Wednesday Black Wednesday (or the 1992 Sterling crisis) occurred on 16 September 1992 when the UK Government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed attempt to keep its exchange rate above the ...

, the BCCI scandal and Marks and Spencer's competition troubles. He has evaluated the growth of websites and internet companies including the rise of

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

and online retailing. From January 2007 until leaving the BBC in 2021, he was the BBC's technology correspondent, with the job of expanding the BBC's coverage of

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

and telecoms and the cultural impact of the Internet. On 30 May 2019, following his presentation of the first BBC broadcast over a 5G network, Cellan-Jones announced via Twitter that he had been diagnosed with early

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

, but that he intended to carry on as normal. He announced on Twitter in August 2021 his intention to leave the BBC in October after 40 years. Along with other well-wishers from the BBC, ''BBC Breakfast'' presenter Naga Munchetty replied to him on Twitter, calling him an "utterly brilliant man".

Personal life

Cellan-Jones is married to economist and author

Diane Coyle Diane Coyle (born February 1961) is an economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She was vice-chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and was a member of the UK Competition Commission fr ...

. The couple have two sons and live in

West Ealing West Ealing is a district in the London Borough of Ealing, in West London. The district is about west of Ealing Broadway. Although there is a long history of settlement in the area, West Ealing in its present form is less than one hundred years ...

, London. He and Coyle adopted Sophie, a nervous rescue dog from

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, in December 2022. They have reported on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

about Sophie's slow progress in settling in via the hashtag #sophiefromromania.

Publications

* ''Dot.Bomb: The Rise and Fall of Dot.com Britain'' (London: Autumn, 2001) * ''The Secret History of Social Networking'' (BBC, 2012) * With Mike Hally, ''Patently Absurd'' (Audio, 2013) * ''Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era'' (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2021) * ''Ruskin Park: Syvia, Me and the BBC'' (September Publishing, due 2023)

References

External links

*
Rory Cellan-Jones on Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cellan-Jones, Rory 1958 births Living people Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge BBC newsreaders and journalists English male journalists English television presenters People with Parkinson's disease British technology journalists English people of Welsh descent People educated at Dulwich College