Stats: A Good Alternate Lede

I've been very focused on you all doing basic journalism: a to-the-point lede, a strong nut graf, frequent attribution, and so forth.

But the goal isn't to write basic stories with basic ledes; it's to use the qualities of structure, simple and direct language, attribution and such to then reinstall creativity to our writing, so that we have something that is both fun to read AND fun to write; something that is engaging in style yet solid in journalistic principles.

I think this story -- and its alternate lede -- does a good job of marrying fundamentals and a fun-to-read style. Note how it's not creativity for creativity's sake; it's an artistic style entirely rooted in the facts you're trying to emphasize:  

It’s the device that changed the lives of many people.

It has become the go-to for information regarding the news, weather, research, latest celebrity gossip and much, much more.

What is it?

It’s the computer.

There has been a dramatic growth of computer ownership and Internet use in American households from the early 1980s until now, according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The U.S. Census Bureau conducted the survey as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS) on household computer ownership and Internet use by Americans.

The CPS is a large nationally representative survey of approximately 50,000 households conducted each month by the U.S. Census Bureau; this particular survey was conducted in October, said the survey.

The survey shows that since the early 1980s when computers first entered households, the number of households owning a computer has increased from 8.2 percent to 61.8 percent of 113.1 million American households.

According to the survey, of the 61.8 percent of households with computers, 54.7 percent access the Internet from home.

“Today, more than 76 percent of children ages 3 to 17 have access to a computer, as do 57 percent of all adults ages 18+,” said the survey.

Although computers and the Internet are becoming popular in the majority of American households, they aren’t for everyone.

According to the survey, of the 45.3 percent of households that don’t access the Internet but have computers, have a variety of reasons given for not connecting to the Internet.

A few main reasons given were having computers that are inadequate to access the Internet, people who felt they don’t need the Internet or weren’t interested in it, and the cost of the Internet was too high, said the survey.

The survey also said that many people don’t access the Internet because of a lack of time, lack of skill, language barriers, privacy and security concerns, and concerns about children accessing questionable material on the Internet.