And here is the news where you are.. our Jackie’s going to be on the TV. And she hasn’t been arrested for anything
Presenter reveals pals’ shock when told she was fronting national show for first time
When Jackie Bird’s parents told their friends and neighbours their daughter was going to be on Reporting Scotland, some thought she must have done something wrong and was going to court.
That was 1989 and she wasn’t appearing in court but presenting and, 29 years on, she’s done the equivalent of a life sentence with no parole. It’s a role which has defined her career, the longest-serving incumbent in the programme’s history. Jackie, 55, is acutely aware of her privileged position after marking the show’s half-century in documentary Fifty Years Of Reporting Scotland: The News Where We Are, which sees her go behind the scenes of the programme and hear from viewers and past presenters. They include Mary Marquis, the doyenne of Scottish TV news who anchored the programme for 20 years from its debut on April 1, 1968. While Jackie may wear the crown today, she had no hesitation in bowing to the queen. She said: “Mary Marquis was that byword for news when I was growing up. Someone would read something out at school and you would say, ‘ Who do you think you are, Mary Marquis?’ She was the figurehead.
“We brought Mary into the studio and had a chat and she is looking amazing. She still has the poise she had then.
“She came into the studio at Pacific Quay and the reaction was much the same round the whole building – for those of a certain age, it was like a visit from the Queen.”
But it wasn’t always the way. The programme uncovers footage of an early Talkback show from May 1968, where the late Alasdair Milne, then controller of BBC Scotland, fielded questions and comments from viewers. Jean Todd, a teacher, was
impressed with Mary’s ability as an interviewer but less so with her equal standing as a newsreader.
“To begin with, a female newsreader is quite wrong,” she wrote.
Jackie said: “They didn’t want a woman being involved in doing the hard stuff.
“We also have in the programme Paddy Christie, who was a hardbitten news reporter. She had come in the early 70s after a cull at the Daily Express and on telly she was given what she describes as granny knitting stories and lots of soft stuff.
“She said, ‘ I’m a court reporter,’ and eventually she got her way and became one of the most effective court reporters we have. Even then, women were fighting the good fight.”
Reporting Scotland was the brainchild of Milne, who copied the idea from an American news show he had seen while visiting the States.
The star- spangled inf luence helped shape the programme when it became a reality in 1968.
Milne said: “I’d seen what the Americans did – there was a Huntley-Brinkley show, which was the nightly news programme on NBC. It was Chet Huntley in New York and Ade Brinkley in Washington and they swapped stories between the two of them.
“And I thought this was the model for us because we’ve got studios in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
“Edinburgh’s like Washington, Glasgow’s like New York and Aberdeen the third leg to cover the north.”
Reporting Scotland of fered viewers an extended nightly news bulletin that told the Scottish news for and by the people of Scotland. Many of the presenters who sharedshd that th t news have become household names, including Jackie, Mary, Kenneth Roy, John Milne, Alan Douglas, Viv Lumsden, Eddie Mair, Sal ly McNair, Anne MacKenzie and Sally Magnusson. n.
Jackie made her debut on October ber 16, 1989. If it was a big deal to her, it was a surprise to most people who knew her growing up in Hamilton.
She said : “I’d been in newspapers and radio, then I disappeared because I went down south to work as a TV news reporter so none of my friends knew what I was doing.
“My dad was a school janitor, my mum was a care home worker. They told people that Jackie was going to be on the news tonight and I think people thought, ‘ Is she in a court case? Has she done something terrible?’ They couldn’t believe I was fronting the news. “I remember I was terrified. I was put beside John Mi lne, another iconic broadcaster, and I was just so pleased I got through it without a calamity.” She has since become synonymous with the programme, proud of its heritage and current output. The film, which will go out on BBC1 on Thursday at 7pm, also goes behind the scenesscen of the show as it reportedrepo the recent Beast from the East snowstorm, whichwh reached nearly a millionmilllion viewviewers – almost doubledo the total of regular viewingvie figures. SheS said: “The end of the teatimetim news has b e e n mu c h publicisedpub and forecastforec and there is no doubtd that the saturationsatur of the mediadi att theth moment is hitting viewing figures across all of TV. “However, when something like that happens and almost a million people stick with the programme for its entirety, it is staggering. I’m very proud we are so familiar and are viewed as the place to go, especially when there’s a big story.” The reporting on the Beast from the East highlighted the huge shift in technology as the studio kept a live feed with a driver stuck on the M80, spoke to the transport minister and updated warnings, advice, news on schools, gritters and the size and scale of the storm.
It wouldn’t have happened in Mary Marquis’s day, when f ilm footage had to be returned to the processing department by 3pm to be dipped in an acid bath to make that night’s bulletin.
Jackie said: “Most of that would have been impossible 50 years ago. Technology has made the biggest impact but, in saying that, Mary perhaps summed it up best.
“When she came in and we sat at the news desk, she said, ‘It’s the same but different.’ It’s different because of technology, because of viewers’ expectations. But, in terms of bringing the news to viewers, it’s the same.”
As for the future, the only thing which is certain is that there will be change – but Jackie lives in hope.
She said: “Will there be a Reporting Scotland in 50 years? I honestly don’t know because technology and the way people get their news is changing so rapidly.
“Is it going to be here in 10 or 20 years? I think so.
“Regardless of the fact that we are all attached to our mobiles and breaking news, I think there are still enough of us around to maintain Reporting Scotland.
“But the show will have to evolve with the technology and how we report the news.”
I’m so proud we are viewed as the place to go for big news