John MacKay

John Mackay - Transcript

 

[Interviewer is not stated but is said to be Bernard Ponsonby, Date of Recording 21 07 2018]

 

[Start of Recording]

 

[00:00]

I: OK, the copyright of this recording is vested in the Scottish Broadcasting Heritage Group. The name of the interviewee is John Mackay who is the main News anchor here at STV. His job title is Presenter and he's been here since September of 1994 and the recording is taking place at Pacific Quay, Glasgow, on 21st July, 2018. John, first of all, tell me, where were you born?

R: Glasgow. I was born in Glasgow. Not too far away from PQ [Pacific Quay] here actually.

I: And where were you based?

R: Also in Glasgow. I'm from Hillington in Glasgow. My father worked at the Rolls Royce in Hillington so a lot of the workers were in the Hillington area so that's where I grew up and went to school in Penilee, which is the neighbouring...

I: And when you were at school what did you want to do for a living?

R: Various things. A professional footballer like everybody from my background but principally, actually, early secondary school I enjoyed writing and it was suggested to me by a teacher (and teachers can be very inspirational), "Have you thought about journalism?" and I hadn't thought about journalism so that would be about thirteen, fourteen so from there on my aim was always - I want to be a Journalist.

I: And how did you go about being a Journalist? Presumably you went to university?

R: Yeah.

I: And got involved with the student newspaper?

R: I did. I worked, even before that I was doing school magazines. Editing school magazines. I went to Glasgow University, did a course that I thought would lead into journalism but my main priority at University was to work on, and ultimately edit, the Glasgow University Guardian, the student newspaper there, and that was probably the biggest thing that got me into the profession.

I: Anybody around at that time at University that has gone on to make it?

R: Well, the one name that was always associated with The Guardian was Andrew Neil who was on News way before my time but other editors round about that time have gone on and done well. The ones that spring to my mind who were immediate contemporaries of mine are Ken Garner, who's now actually not so much a Journalist but he lectures in Journalism at Glasgow Caley [Caledonian] University and Graeme Smith, the recent Editor of The Herald. They were immediate contemporaries of mine. Others like John Molland, who, I think, went to Fleet Street and The Independent, people like that.

I: Did you enjoy editing The Guardian?

R: I did. I did not, actually, get a great deal out of university academically. I didn't particularly care for it and I didn't get a great deal out of it but what did make university for me was working on the newspaper. This whole idea of reporting and bringing my own, sort of, brand to the paper if you like.

I: And after university how did you break into Journalism?

R: Well, I had a postgraduate course lined up at City University in London and that was, well I thought that's where I'll go and I actually thought I would probably end up staying in London but I had cold-called round a few of the newspapers. My ambition was to work in the Glasgow Herald, as it then was, and I had done some work experience there and on the Evening Times. I've actually, probably another thing that got me into Journalism was I was a news boy for many, many years, delivering the Evening Times so that was an aspiration for me. So, I cold-called a lot of papers and the Sunday Post, D.C. Thomson, up in, then in Port Dundas in Glasgow, took me on as a trainee Journalist.

I: What did you do as a trainee Journalist?

R: You did everything across the paper. My great frustration latterly was that I wasn't getting enough News but it was principally Features, it was middle page stories, which was a big deal for the Sunday Post. I'm sure I contributed to Francis Gay although I think everyone says they contributed to Francis Gay! I did a couple for that. It was across the board. I was doing the quiz. I was doing everything. It was actually a really good grounding.

I: Did it whet your appetite?

R: It did but it also frustrated me because I wanted to do News. As I was doing that, I realised I really don't want to do Features and I don't want to do the light stuff. News was what I wanted to do and on the occasions that I did do that, particularly latterly, I got a real buzz from it!

I: Now, I should have asked you, just for the record, what years were you at Glasgow University?

R: I went to Glasgow University in 1983 and graduated in 1986 with an uninspiring Ordinary Degree. By that time I'd had enough.

I: And what year did you do this placement at the Sunday Post?

R: It was a job at the Sunday Post. A junior post from '86 [1986] to '87 [1987].

[04:52]

I: And the culture was a wee bit different.

R: It was very old school!

I: Just talk to us a little bit about the culture.

R: Well, the Sunday Post particularly. Well, I'll even take you before that! I did work experience on the Evening Times and I remember one day going to work on the Evening Times and there was a fire out the east end of Glasgow somewhere. I can't, it was a flat somewhere so they had a reporter and they had a photographer and they had a driver and the Evening Times started really early in the morning so I think they were out there about seven o' clock and everything was done and the driver just sitting waiting. Then on the way back we went via the Fruit Market. I think there was a bar on the Fruit Market. I was...

I: There was bound to be!

R: You'll remember the day! I was certainly, I was unaware of all this! So we were sitting there and the driver had a couple, the photographer had a couple, the reporter, I think, he was younger and was slightly less comfortable with it and I really wimped out and went for orange juice but that's the thing I always remember - the driver had a couple of shots before we even started! Anyway! The Sunday Post, it was a Sunday newspaper so that meant the early part of the week. You worked Tuesday to Saturday essentially. You got your ideas together on the Tuesday, Wednesday. They were fed up to Dundee to Head Office. They would come back with a response - "Yeah, we'll do that, we'll do this," or "we'll vary that." But it quite often was Thursday or Friday before you even get into your stories and Saturday was on the day stuff so it did mean that Tuesday, Wednesday and, quite often, Thursday were not especially demanding and, of course, a lot of the time was spent in the pub and I really began to notice a) my drinking capacity increased dramatically but also so did my weight because you were just sitting about for a lot of the time and it's only, at the time I enjoyed it and it was great and the guys were really good with me and looked after me and all the rest of it but, very quickly, I began to feel I can't keep doing this! And so, I don't know what I would have ended up as had I stayed at the Sunday Post. I think I might have got well into that newspaper culture which, fortunately I moved into broadcasting and you really can't do that there.

I: Did you go from the Sunday Post to the BBC?

R: I did. I had previously, again as a student, applied for a job at Radio Clyde. I had gone in for a couple of hours to get work experience and at the end of it - this was on the basis of a tape I'd sent in - and they said, "Well, come on in and we'll see what it's like". Well, at the end of that day the boss at the time said to me, "You don't have a voice for broadcasting, son, you'll not make it." So...

I: Who was that?

R: It was Alex Dickson. I reminded him of this later on and he denied it but that's, I remember it. I've no, I have to say at the time I'd no resentment because he'd been straight with me. There was no, kind of, keep you hanging on or anything, just straight, "You're not going to make it! Stick to the print." So that's what I assumed my future would be. I was in the Sunday Post. I saw, or actually friends, my girlfriend saw an advert for the BBC - News Trainees - "Do you fancy applying for that?" "Oh no, I don't have a voice for broadcasting!" But I thought, 'oh, I'll give it a go anyway and see what the BBC say'. So I did apply and went through the whole process and was quite surprised to be taken on as a News Trainee by BBC Scotland, starting in Radio Scotland particularly.

I: And that, you said that you were, sort of, sanguine when Alex Dickson told you that but of course, things were changing in broadcasting then because hitherto, I mean, up until that point they did have people reading the News who were quite plummy.

R: Yes. Well, I didn't, I didn't really see myself doing, I certainly didn't see myself doing TV because I didn't see myself on TV if that makes sense. I possibly thought radio because, by that time, Radio Clyde was really going and the football coverage on Radio Clyde and I think I always had an ambition of maybe, I always fancied the notion of being a football commentator but, again, that's typical of guys of our era. So, maybe I thought Radio Clyde might be a path in but when Radio Clyde said no, I said, "Oh well, that's that. That's what I would have expected anyway!" It was an ambition and it's not going to happen so I'll stick to print. And thereafter my ambition, even when I was at the Sunday Post, was to go to The Herald or the Evening Times. So the fact that I got into the BBC took me on a whole different trajectory and took me by surprise to be frank.

I: Yeah, just explain what you did there?

R: BBC, Radio Scotland, I was a trainee with a two-year contract to begin with so this is 1987. Started off as a Sub-Editor. I went on to do some Production in Good Morning, Scotland, Good Evening, Scotland as it then was, now Newsdrive. I then, I would do some reporting as well and you went to outstations, satellite stations and I was told, "No, we'll keep you on the Mainland, no concern about that, we'll keep you in either Inverness or Aberdeen." So, they sent me to Orkney! Which, I have to say, the prospect of it did not appeal to me at all but it turned out to be invaluable. I learned, three months I was there, and I learned a huge amount there.

[10:24]

I: So, how long were you at the BBC for in total?

R: In total I was there from round about November '87 [1987] till, I came to STV in '94 [1994] so just about seven years. And across that I did, as well as the News subbing and the trainee part of it, I became Presenter, Sports Correspondent, Reporter, by-media Reporter. They started using me as a by-media Reporter latterly so for the last couple of years I worked across radio and TV and it was a direct result of that that I came to STV.

I: Talk to us a little bit more about the by-media reporting because you said earlier on you didn't see yourself on television because you just didn't see yourself on television. So, when did you start doing on-screen reporting for the BBC?

R: Well, the BBC was very good at offering attachments so you could do a bit of experience here, a bit of experience there so I went into the Newsroom after a wee while, part of, I think, one of my very close friends at the BBC was Eddie Mair and Eddie had moved into TV so he seemed to quite enjoy it so I thought, 'well, it would be good to get an attachment working on the News desk'. Again, not envisaging being on TV because Eddie was so good that, you know, Eddie was clearly going to do very well for himself so, maybe on the tail of that you could get a bit of experience, broaden your experience so that was my intention. So I got into, I had an attachment at BBC Scotland Television, working for Reporting Scotland bulletins and such. I then went back to Radio but TV continued to use me for their Sports coverage and "Come back down and do some more on the News desk." And then Gordon Macmillan, who, further down the line, became Head of News at STV, asked me to do a screen test and, off the back of that, I started doing bulletins and towards the very end of my time there was occasionally doing Reporting Scotland.

I: What age were you at this point?

R: Just turning, let me think, I was just, I was twenty-nine. Yeah, twenty-nine.

I: And what did you, why did you want to leave the BBC?

R: I didn't. I didn't want to leave the BBC but Scott Ferguson, who was then Head of News at STV, contacted me via Lorraine Davidson, with whom I'd worked at the BBC and who'd gone to STV and was now a Reporter with STV and said, "Would you be interested in going to STV?" And it hadn't crossed my mind. I'd given it no thought at all. But, out of courtesy, I had a conversation with Scott and Scott was a very impressive individual and made me very interested but I thought, as a matter of courtesy, and I did say this to him, "Well, I'll need to tell my bosses that this is what I am doing." And he said, "Well, don't play us off one another." And I said, "I won't but as a courtesy." And I went back to them and said, "Look, this is what's happening." "What can we do to keep you?" I said, "Well, I would like to do more TV. I've enjoyed it." I always remember Ken Cargill saying to me, "Well...", first of all he took a long time to meet up with me whereas Scott Ferguson had been [clicked fingers] like that! And immediately, well, somebody wants you! But then, having met up with me, he was full of BBC Management gobbledygook and finished up by saying, "Of course, we have to be aware of Equal Opportunities!" And as soon as I heard that, I thought 'well, there's not much future here if I want to progress in the way that I now do'. And STV were offering me an opportunity so I took the opportunity.

I: When did you arrive at STV and what did you do initially?

R: I arrived in September 1994 and the original idea was that I was to be a Reporter and then I would do some occasional presenting, first of all bulletins and then, potentially Scotland Today as it then was and this was off the back of me having presented bulletins on Radio Scotland and, I beg your pardon, on Reporting Scotland, bulletins and the programme occasionally. I was told that it was Scott Ferguson's wife who had seen me doing these bulletins and said, "You should get him!" So, I think, that's where the approach came from. You know, it was one of those chance things. [14:55] So, I started reporting. I always remember my very first day. It was a tragic story about a group of Brownies who had been on a bus, they had been under a bridge and the height had been wrong and some of them had been tragically killed. Now, my experience on TV was principally on the desk and presenting. I hadn't really done a lot of TV reporting but STV clearly thought I was very experienced as a TV Reporter so I was sent out, my very first day, on this story, well, the secondary part of the story. I had no log in, I was scribbling everything down and I'm thinking, 'how does this work?! They think I'm better than I am!' But that was a great learning experience for me and I had to hit the ground running. And within a month somebody had called off sick and I presented Scotland Today and so thereafter, so within a couple of months of having arrived at STV I was presenting Scotland Today fairly frequently.

I: And who were the key figures - as this is an oral history project, we'd better record some of the, who were some of the key figures in the News and Current Affairs at that time.

R: The principal was Scott Ferguson. I don't know how long he'd been in the role. He had replaced Blair Jenkins, I think, but I never worked with Blair Jenkins. Scott Ferguson was the guy who brought me in and I thought was a very charismatic figure. What I liked about Scott Ferguson was that you got decisions from him. If you didn't like an idea, he told you. Other figures at the time would have been, well the Presenting team was principally Viv Lumsden and Shereen Nanjiani and Angus Simpson doing a bit as well and Kirsty Young was here as well at that time. On the desk you had John Keene, who was News Editor. In terms of figures, we had Fiona Ross, of course, you had Bernard Ponsonby, you had Geoff Brown, was Paddy Christie there at that point? I can't remember overly. So, they were some of the main figures and then, some of the younger...

I: Who were the Producers?

R: Producers at that time would have been, Mark Smith did some Production but fairly soon after he became Head of News so Mark Smith did Production, Geraldine Flannigan did Production and there's other figures I can't remember when they quite took on the Production - but Linda Grimes Douglas became, was on the scene at that time.

I: Ian Crawford.

R: Ian Crawford was there, yes. I think he, was he going to be there for much longer? I think he was maybe, he wasn't there for very long but he was there. Paul Sinclair did some Production there. Whether that was Freelance or not, I can't quite remember. Directors would include guys like Mike Gower, Ian Couser, John Macdonald. There's Margaret Cunningham, the P.A., Alex Burton, the P.A. so these were really influential figures. And some of the younger figures coming through would have been the likes of, I've mentioned Linda Grimes Douglas, Nicky McGowan, as she then was, now Nicola Court was there. Mike Edwards was coming through, Lorraine Davidson, Claire Dean, people like that.

I: And when did...

R: Martin Geissler. I should have said Martin Geissler. James Matthews! Let's not forget them!

I: And James was in Edinburgh?

R: Yes.

I: And Martin was in Edinburgh?

R: Yes. Well, Martin did quite a lot here actually. He was doing Presentation as well. And there was a guy James Matthews worked with in Edinburgh - Andy...

I: Phail.

R: Andy Phail and the two of them really worked well together.

I: So, you've come to STV, '94 [1994], you are doing some reporting and you are doing some bulletin presenting, you are doing some programme presenting fairly quickly - who were you presenting with?

R: Firstly I presented with Viv Lumsden and Jim Delahunt was doing the Sport and, at that time, you also had the Weather Presenter, I think, was there as well, which, at that time, I think, was Lloyd Quinan but also, at the end of the programme, they had somebody signing for the deaf. There was three or four different people did that. But my very first programme was with Viv Lumsden and Jim Delahunt on the Sports Desk. Thereafter it would be Viv or it would be Shereen, either/or. They didn't like two men presenting together so I very rarely would do it with Angus.

[19:42]

I: You might need to correct me on this - did you do something called Sky Scottish?

R: I did! That was further down the line!

I: Just for the record, what was that?

R: Sky Scottish was a collaboration between STV and Sky to put a Scottish channel and to present it to the Scottish Diaspora. That was the principle of it and my role in it was to do Scotland Today so Scottish News that would go worldwide. And it was essentially repeats of the programme, at that time Scotland Today went out from half six till seven so on Sky Scottish we did the same programme from half seven till eight. It was myself and Andrea Brymer, who had just come in at the time, and Martin Geissler did the Sport. Nicky McGowan, now McCourt did the, well, produced it and it was essentially the same programme. There were one or two rights issues so that some of the Sports footage couldn't be used and it lasted for about a year. I always remember that when Scott Ferguson was selling the programme to me and saying that "This would be a great opportunity for you. You'll be working with Andrea Brymer", he said. "Now, you look at her and it's as if she's from the South Sea islands but when she opens her mouth", he says, "she's clearly the daughter of a Brechin butcher!" He said, "It's a devastating combination!"

I: And in terms of, you must have thought at that point, am I going to sit in Studio and Present? You'd indicated, you know, that you were very interested in News and were a bit of a Newshound and I don't mean this in any sense antagonistically - isn't Presenting a bit of a cop-out?!

R: But I was doing both. So, I was tying them both in. I was a fill-in so it was actually a really good place to be because I was doing a lot of the big stories so I was getting out but occasionally you were in the Studio as well but I actually quite, I found I adapted to the Studio quite well. I particularly enjoyed the buzz of live broadcasting. I got something out of that. So, I didn't really see it as a cop-out. Further down the line actually and when I began Presenting permanently, I had been reporting not just to STV but I'd also been reporting at BBC and I was beginning to find, for me, the same stories coming round year after year and you could almost take out last year's script but probably even more than that, and bear in mind that this is, predates Social Media, that I would be so focussed on my story that I would come back into the Newsroom and find other things had been happening and feel I wasn't across a lot of that as I was so focussed on what I was doing. Presentation allowed you to be across the stories of the day and I quite liked that bigger picture. But at the very beginning because I was doing both that suited me fine.

[22:45]

I: Now, in the mid nineties, the way that News was put together was radically different from today so just give us an idea of, you know, Studio set-ups then compared to now, the News Gathering set-up then as compared to now, the camera set-up. Just give us a flavour as to where we were technologically at that time.

R: Well, the thing that struck me when I came from the BBC to STV was that you were exchanging the culture of the bureaucrat for the culture of the accountant. What that meant was that at the BBC, if you wanted to get a camera, you had to go through three or four different people, sign forms and all the rest of it. When I came to STV you went to John Keene. That's what it was. John Keene was the focal point of what you now call News Gathering. He coordinated everything. "John, can I have a camera?" And, by in large, you got a camera. I'm not so good on the detail of the camera - how many we had and what sort of cameras they were - but I do remember when I first started quite often there would still be a Sound Operator. So, I remember going out with Ross Armstrong, the cameraman, and Neil McCallum would do his sound, for example. But I think it was just, I just came in at the cusp when sound was moving, Camera Operators and Sound were amalgamating. Even occasionally there would be lighting. I didn't find too much difficulty ever getting a camera so I think there must have been a lot of them. I remember a lot of the Cameramen themselves - Bobby Whitelaw, Neil McCallum, as I say, Ross Armstrong, John Agnew, no, no, not John Agnew. John Agnew, yes, but there was another John, John...

I: McGuire.

R: John McGuire, yes, that's right. And I learned an awful lot from these guys. There was a couple of women, too. Was it Mhairi?

I: Mhairi MacDonald, I think.

R: Yes. And, here, Jackie. Yes. So, I had great experience working with them. So, there seemed to be a lot of cameras. In terms of, we'd also started, when I, just at the tail end of my time at the BBC, we were moving into computer scripts and running orders. Well, that was just beginning here as well and it was all very basic but it was computer-led. The Studio would be, so, you were out on a story and it was Beta tapes so it was physical, you had to get them back, all of that stuff, no sending it from however it can be done now. And famously, you know, John Keene, now whether it happened to me or whether it happened to somebody else or whether it never happened at all, but it does, kind of, encapsulate the mood of the time - John, you'd phone John, "Stuck in traffic on the Kingston Bridge, John, really going to struggle!" "I hear what you're saying, son, but I need these pictures so you've got to get here!"

I: And in those days you would have been editing your own pictures?

R: Well, no.

I: Or you would have been with an Editing Team?

R: Yes, so you would go downstairs. This was in Cowcaddens so you would go downstairs and there were three Editing Suites as I recall, plus a Craft Suite. The Craft Suite you weren't to go into unless you were doing a Feature or it was really up against it so you'd actually be queuing outside the Editing Suites waiting for Editors like Eric Smith or David Cameron, Martin Kethera, people like that to edit your...

I: Tim Mitchell.

R: Tim Mitchell. Yes, Tim Mitchell, of course! With whom I have edited.

I: Tony Dickinson?

R: Tony Dickinson, yes. I think, was Tony maybe before my time?

I: Michael Watt?

R: Michael Watt, yes, who moved up to Aberdeen. Yes, so these are guys, the names I mentioned plus Michael Watt, I worked with a lot. Tim, maybe not so much, and I don't mean an offense but I can't really remember the others you mentioned.

I: So, just tell us how a package was put together?

R: So, forgive me, yeah. So, you would come back in. You would go to a Viewing machine. You didn't have one at the desk. Where would the Viewing machine have been? There would be one or two Viewing machines round the Newsroom but really, you never saw your footage until you were in the Editing Suite. So, you would then, I would tend to write the script in the Editing Suite as I was watching the pictures so my memory, my flash memory of it all is a lot of button-pressing by the Editor as you said, "Can you come in there and come out there?" So, there's tape whirring and buttons being pressed and I know there was editing but I was never quite sure what the whole process was. Some people were really really kind of, you know, really sharp at it, one or two others maybe not so much which was hugely frustrating as we all know! So, it was quite, on reflection it was quite a laborious process and for me, having mostly worked on Radio where you edited your own material, I found it quite frustrating! So, you would go out and do your News Gathering using phones (there were no mobiles) so clearly, although they were beginning at that time, we had a fleet of Volvo cars and some of them had mobiles in them but generally speaking you were going to an interviewee, it was set up beforehand and then things changed and you turned up and they'd gone and you weren't going to know that. We'd bleepers, we used bleepers, if you got a bleep from the desk you had to phone in. Whatever that might be. You'd maybe got an interview or whatever. But basically, you were quite isolated when you were out on the road. You came back with your tape and you'd an idea, I tended to try and structure it, like most people do, when I was coming back - that's my best clip, that's my best picture - and tell Production what you had or quite often, not, because they just wanted to fill the programme, queue up to get into Editing, sit there as the, in here, out there, and then sometimes you would actually leave the Edit Suite if you were up against it and particularly good Editors would just cover the gaps for you. I tended to like to use particular pictures, right-to pictures. I'm not sure everybody was so bothered about that so you would leave it to the Editor just to cover it over. I quite liked the idea of well, that's my pictures and I want my words. Get the picture down and the words will match it. And then it was taken, the tape would then be left with the Editor, I think, or maybe you took it back upstairs and Liz Prentice would be in Traffic as I think it then was and she had some contraption! All these Beta tapes and this kind of, well, contraption is the best word I can have for it and it would automatically play them!

I: It was like a chest of drawers!

R: Exactly! And it would automatically go up and down the tape and go in and out and this was regarded as very cutting edge at the time. I think it was quite stressful for Liz and those who worked on it.

[30:05]

I: In the Studio, again Studios were different back then compared to now. Just explain the Studio set-up because, of course, Studio C at Cowcaddens was, in comparison to today, a huge Studio.

R: It was. Studio B, Studio 1 at Pacific Quay would fit into Studio C, I mean, multi times over so when I, it was at various corners in Studio C and the News set was a permanent set. Studio A was the really big one where occasionally if there was a refit going on in Studio C, you would do the News from Studio A but you'd a permanent set in Studio A [sic - probably means Studio C] and you'd manned cameras and at least one, if not two, there was a Floor Manager, Sound was on the floor as well but an Autocue was operated but in terms of the basics of it apart from the automation with the cameras and indeed in the gallery, the actual practicalities of reading the News were not that different. Still had paper scripts. Still do have paper scripts. The Autocue hasn't changed a great deal but the difference you would notice now from then is your isolation in the Studio. You are very much on your own whereas then there was always people about. And the other thing I remember would be, so you go down this corridor and there was Sound, there was a Sound booth and there would be two or three people in that - Ian Couser and an older gentleman with a beard, remember?

I: Ian Ramsay.

R: Ian Ramsay. And there were various other people came through, Andy, Andy Jardine, as well, and various other people will come to mind after I've finished this and I will think, oh, I should have remembered that! But the Sound gallery was very big and the Production gallery was huge! Very long and all very dark and all very busy. And there was a corridor running behind it and the number of times I remember up and down that trying to feed scripts or give details or captions etc. So, it's all far smaller now but inevitably that's what happens but the actual process, yeah, the actual basics of it are still pretty much the same.

I: Obviously the News has always gone out live but the component parts of News programmes back then tended to be overwhelmingly just as reading into a series of passages. When did live reporting as a key part of the geography of the programme start to become a bit more prevalent?

R: Well, the one thing, I particularly remember the Dunblane tragedy so that was fairly soon after I started actually and I was supposed to anchor the programme from Dunblane, the night of that, and I had written, it was such a tragic story and I had written a carefully crafted intro into the story and was on the hill above Dunblane with the school behind me and was ready to go and I knew there was a technical issue but we'd taken up almost a street with the number of trucks we had there and I was going live into the programme and the only way I realised that I wasn't live in the programme is as I took a breath to read my script, I heard Shereen actually reading my script! It was that late they didn't know whether they would do it or not. The point being that the programme was being broadcast from the Studio rather than from live in Dunblane. That created a big change. I think that's when they first brought the satellite trucks in and it was the day after that you got a lot more live elements to it. Part of that would be, for example, interviewing politicians live into the News for two or three minutes. We did that for a wee while as well. But I think that '96 [1996] Dunblane, our technical mess-up that day was what I think that's when the satellite trucks came in and that's when we started using more live stuff.

[34:28]

I: Let's talk about stories because that leads us nicely in and again, for the record, because it was my very clear recollection was that the Dunblane programme was a total disaster.

R: It was! It was an absolute disaster because we had so much lined up live in Dunblane and I think we went to an hour-long programme and the packages, Dougie McGuire was the Reporter who was first on the scene, I think with ? Smith. Just as a wee aside to that, I remember driving up to Dunblane with this note from P.A., actually it was from Central Scotland News Agency - ten children shot at Dunblane School - and you thought this cannot possibly be true - and it was one of the big Volvos that we had and I was driving up with Mick...

I: Haggarty.

R: Mick Haggarty. So, we were driving up to Dunblane and, as I say, I'm looking at this and saying, "This cannot possibly be true!" and Mick undertook a patrol car, a police patrol car, undertook it, and it didn't react and at that point I thought, 'oh crikey! This is major!' So the packages that we had, Dougie McGuire did, and various other people who were there did really powerful packages but there was supposed to be a lot of live elements in it which we couldn't do because the line went down so we ended up in this hour's special having discussions on psychology in the Studio going on for six or seven minutes. It was on, on the day of such a big story, it was an utter disaster!

I: I've just, I've put this on the record on my own piece - I actually was the first that was dispatched from Cowcaddens and sent to Stirling Royal and even by six o' clock I was doing phone reports. It was that much of a technical disaster.

R: I also remember being up there in the morning and we had a lunchtime bulletin and I remember driving down from Dunblane with the tape so that we could play it at lunchtime and then driving back up again.

I: What were the other significant stories that you remember around that time?

R: Well, I suppose, inevitably you're going to get big, dramatic stories but the stories that probably last the most would be Devolution, for example. That was the big thing of the time and the two votes for Devolution. It was Labour coming in to power and a new dawn as Tony Blair would say and that, inevitably, was going to bring the Devolution vote. There was the creation of the Scottish Parliament. These were the ones that have a lasting legacy but also we were doing things like Celtic. This was, again, taking advantage of sat. truck, Celtic UEFA Cup Final in Seville in 2003, I anchored the programme from over there and I'm not sure we could have done that very easily prior to that. These are some of the big ones that stick in my mind but you'll tell me some and I'll say, of course! Of course! There are so many but there are, at that stage these are the ones. Dunblane is the one that sticks in my mind more than any other then you've got Blair coming in the following year then you've got Devolution and the campaign for that and then you've got the creation of the Scottish Parliament and the excitement around that so, at that period, that's the stories that stick in my mind.

I: At that point, my recollection is that you had, you would very occasionally, and it was very occasionally that you would maybe do a package report if it was something that you were interested in or something the desk thought was your bag but you were almost entirely a Studio animal at that point - did you ever think to yourself 'I'm missing anything' simply by sitting in the Studio?

R: I started in '94 [1994]. My first Presentation was October '94 [1994] and by '98/'99 [1998/99] I was mostly Studio Presentation. I think Viv left in '98 [1998] and, at that point, Paul McKinney, who then told me that he wanted me to become, partner Shereen. So, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the buzz of the live broadcast. I still did do reports as you say so no, I don't think I did miss it. As I say, by that point I was beginning to get into the cycle of News, same News each year and probably needed a change and was a bit bored with it.

[39:21]

I: Has the role changed in the sense that (and I suppose this is my prejudice), my recollection is that in the early days people just read words. Whether they understood them or not was really neither here nor there but the role in the sense has developed - anchoring programmes from location where stories are still moving, where you have to do interviews, in that sense it is not a Presenter's job, it's now, on many occasions, an anchoring job which combines presentational skills with journalistic judgement on the spot.

R: Again, part of that has changed because of the ability to use the sat. trucks and do whole programmes from elsewhere. Paul McKinney used to use me a lot because I was fairly good at memorising stuff so we didn't need autocue, we didn't need a big, a lot of that so Paul liked sending me out to anchor from location. I would say it's changed again, actually. So, we move out the Studio and we re-launch, round about when we moved to Pacific Quay actually in 2006, we re-launched with single Presentation. Shereen had left by this point so we became single Presentation and the idea was that it would be an anchor, literally an anchor for the programme so you would throw out and come back, throw out and come back and exactly as you were saying, it was more than just Presenting, it was also, there was a journalistic part to it. My, round about that period for me was some of the best programmes that we did, 2006/2007, we did some really good programmes then actually. Probably the best of all, a wee bit later than that, was a programme we did, presented from Barlinnie Jail. Inside Barlinnie jail. Anchoring the programme from Barlinnie jail and the whole programme was devoted to that. It was really powerful. That was the anchoring to journalism that we're talking about. Unfortunately we started, and it's an unfortunate personal view this, we took this idea of presenting a programme in Edinburgh and a programme in Glasgow, simultaneous lives, programmes that actually I don't think were that different and what that did was lock us down into a structure. So, it went back to almost being Presentation then. You were just reading, which is important enough in itself but the anchoring part of it became less so, I think. We only then did it on big days of elections and stuff like that so I have found that quite frustrating.

I: So, with the Barlinnie programme as I remember that one as well. I can recall a provocative [?? unintelligible due to laughter], murderers, rapists, child molesters, the minute it was out of the cell doors, [?? unintelligible due to laughter].

R: We had been wandering about the prison all day! You see, that was another one! We had to do a promo so the guards took us into whatever hall it was at Barlinnie, I can't remember, so they left me on the floor and then the guards took the crew up to the top floor so that they could shoot down showing the whole drama of the thing and I'm...! Actually, the prisoners were fine apart from one guy who I do remember - "Show that camera in my face and I'll...!" You know, you can imagine! Anyway, the prisoners were all in their cells for when we went live and it is true that there are murderers and rapists among the Barlinnie population. It turns out that there are few of them but they are there. Most of these prisoners are elsewhere, Peterhead and such. So, you are absolutely right. The prisoners are all in their cells, I'm on the top floor doing my live and I've lost sound, another classic STV, I've lost sound and I can just hear a white noise but I think 'oh, I'll just go for it'. I'm walking and I deliberately, exactly as you say, in here among murderers and rapists and these guys in their cells - bang! Bang! "What are you saying?!" and all that sort of stuff! There were so many of them shouting. Had it been an individual you would have heard every word clearly but because it was so many of them shouting at the one time it was lost in the barrage of noise! But straight away that gave the programme something. We haven't done that since and part of the reason we haven't is because we are locked in to this two programmes trying to do the same thing.

[44:24]

I: What changes have you seen? I'll come on to Scotland Tonight in the minute, separately. What changes have you observed in terms of News Gathering and does it make for a better programme because my view is that, I'm interested to get your own view, is that visually they are slicker than they've ever been but the hard, journalistic point has frankly just been lost in amongst this sort of cornucopia of gadgetry and how you put it together.

R: Well, going back to my Radio days. The idea that you could edit your own piece so I can't remember when we started doing that but that would have been...

I: 2000.

R: Right. Well, I knew that you would know these things! For me, that's all kind of lost in the haze. But I actually enjoyed that. I liked that. I liked regaining that control. No disrespect to Craft Editors, you still need them, people like, people we had before, but people like Stuart Poole now who can take an ordinary report and just transform it. But I liked, pretty much, doing the basics. This is what I want rather than having to tell somebody who maybe wasn't quite getting it, perhaps because I wasn't quite clear enough. So, you had that. We then moved to certain stylistic things so we were doing lives with Reporters, we weren't actually adding much to the story, we were doing it because it was live and some Producers were getting very excited because we'd six or seven lives tonight. Well, that's great but what were they actually saying? We should have the lives, of course we should, but what are they adding to what we're doing? We're moving into a new stage now whereby it's Radio Journalism and people are filming their own reports. Now, because of the cameras and maybe because people are still inexperienced, the quality of the picture is nothing like what it should be either so, yes, there's the whole issue of people not drilling into the story  because of they are doing more on their own as a Journalist. However, I think it's not so much that that has caused the lessening of the journalism, for me it's because we are trying to do so much. We've got so many outputs or outlets that people are having to deliver for STV2, we're having to deliver for STV2, we're having to deliver for 6, for lunchtime, for Edinburgh, a different version for Edinburgh and re-versioning for North - for me, that's what became the issue and because we're having to fill so much it's a risk of being churnalism. You know, we're doing campaigns and charity sets and that's not what I think we should be about so, for me, it's more, it's not so much about the technology that's caused that, it's the volume of output.

I: And, is there a tendency now for News organisations to promote people before they're ready? I mean, you would have come in in '94 [1994] there would have been some very big personalities in the Newsroom and very, folk who were Broadcasters of longstanding who, if I can use a colloquialism, knew their stuff!

R: Yes.

I: Is there a sense now which if you're ?, you're in and ?[inaudible]

R: There is! That's particularly with Presentation actually. A lot of that, I think, is driven by younger people who've done Journalism degrees, thinking, you know, I should be doing, pushing faster. I know, I understand why they want to do that but sometimes they need to be told that you need to do your time. You know, I worked, I remember being disappointed several times at the BBC in not getting a particular job but all the time keeping on doing the same thing and getting better and better at it and improving the grounding on which you are building everything else. So, there is an eagerness for people to push and get on and complain if they don't and Management maybe don't resist that enough. I think that, yeah, there are, we always go back though, yeah there are people who are on screen who maybe shouldn't be but maybe that's how they'll learn but we always go back to the big beasts. We will, STV News currently just now, we will lead with a Bernard Ponsonby story or a David Cowan story or a Gordon Chree or a Sharon Frew story. We will always lead with these stories.

I: [inaudible]

R: Well, we'll see how that pans out! But the other side of that is that I think there are some really talented young people who possibly we didn't take full advantage of and we lost them. An example of that, for me, is Pete Smith who came through, as soon as he came in the door was clearly very talented, very able, very enthusiastic but capable. He delivered on what he promised, won a Journalism award and we didn't offer him, we should have said, "Right, tie this lad down!" and we didn't and we lost him and he went to ITV. So, I think you need to recognise talent over time. I think there has to be, you have to be aware of that. And there are young people who should be pushed forward but there's no question that when it's the big stories, it is the big beasts that we go to.

[50:18]

I: Scotland Tonight, just talk a little bit about that because doing a half hour of current affairs four nights a week was a big step change for the station and from your perspective, is a much, it's Night and Day actually, isn't it, from doing News?

R: It is. Scotland Today, I beg your pardon, Scotland Tonight was first mooted to me, it was after the SNP majority Government at Holyrood in 2011. So, clearly, there was going to be an Independent Referendum so that would be round about May 2011. So, thereafter, Howard Simpson, the News Editor, said to me they were thinking of doing a new programme. BBC Scotland had singularly failed to deliver quality current affairs or even interesting current affairs with Newsnight Scotland or any of their other offerings so there was actually an open door there. And he said, you know, "You might be interested in doing this" and I was. And I'll tell you what actually grabbed it for me was the set. As soon as I saw the plans for the set I thought 'this is something different. This is something they haven't done before'. And you're right, for me it was a challenge, it was a new thing. I was stretching myself more than I would be otherwise doing it two nights a week. Rona Dougall was brought in and Rona Dougall was not one of the names that was initially mentioned when they were talking about Co-Presenters. I was always going to do two nights and somebody else do the other two. Two other names were very much in the frame for that, expected to do it and Rona, apparently, did very well in her audition. So, we started off, was it October, I think, 2011. And straight away the whole concept was, what are people talking about? That's still the concept but it's tough going delivering a current affairs programme four nights a week every single day with a very small team and Stephen Townsend, the Editor, the Senior Producer, does a really good job on that. But inevitably when you do that, sometimes it gets, it's almost not quite formulaic but we do the stories we know will deliver. If we'd a bigger team, you could maybe go off beat a wee bit more and I think it would be more interesting if we did that.

I: What have you enjoyed about Scotland Tonight?

R: The things I particularly enjoyed at Scotland Tonight, I always come out of an interview thinking, 'what did I learn from that?' Now, I'm not of your standard of political interview but, by and large, if it's a six minute interview, you're only going to get so much anyway so I'm thinking, 'well, what...', my view has always been I respect the intelligence of the audience. I'll let the people make their case and the audience is smart enough to make up their own mind. That tends to be my approach to it unless somebody is blatantly lying or avoiding answering a question. I think the ones that I've enjoyed are those with, off the beaten track. Things that we wouldn't typically do. Interesting people with interesting stories to tell so I'll give you one example of that. I remember fairly soon after we started actually, we had an interview with a cyclist, Graeme Obree, just after Garry Speed, the Welsh Manager, had tragically committed suicide and David Obree had himself, Graeme Obree, I beg your pardon, had himself had serious issues and had attempted suicide twice and he told us what was the mentality because a lot of people were thinking, 'how could somebody leave their family like that?!' Leave a wife and a young family. Graeme Obree told us exactly how they could. He spoke about if you imagine you are at a party and you just don't want to be there - that's what it's like. That's the feeling, he said, but ten times greater! You know, you just want to go home. You just want to get out. And he said, well, if you get out of your bed and that's what you've got and you feel you're dragging everyone down with you and you feel you are dragging your family down with you and what you're about to do is actually going to release them. I'd never heard that before or anything like that before. That's one of the most memorable interviews I have ever done and it was nothing to do with what I was asking about, it was just what he was delivering. That's the sort of interviews that I enjoy. It's actually, although I started off very much a Newshound to the extent that, when I was at BBC I was a Sports Correspondent for a while and I love football but I asked that, "I want to go back to News" because I missed News. On Scotland Tonight it's not the News stories but it is these stories - that's what I found most rewarding and I can come out of an interview, I can come out of a programme thinking, 'everyone must have learnt something from that' so that's really worthwhile.

[55:40]

I: Just talk to me a little bit about how important was News and Current Affairs as part of a wider STV offering in '94 [1994]? Where does it sit now and where might it sit in the future?

 

R: My observation of it has always been that News, despite maybe a broader view within the Company, always delivers. It's resented a wee bit for that, I think, because it is seen as a cost. It doesn't generate money as such but it is very much the identity of the station. I think, elsewhere in the Company - I could be wrong in this but my perception is - elsewhere in the Company that causes some resentment. Certainly it has in the past but because we continue to deliver and our audience shares is still very significant, thirty-four percent, thirty-plus percent repeatedly just in this period although I know that goes up and down. So, I always feel that people have always, elsewhere in the Company, have looked upon News as a cost and have maybe looked - "How can we reduce this? How can we push News to the side?" And pretty much since I've been here that has been a repeated pattern but News keeps on coming up because that's what people identify with. That's what they see STV as. I mean, I went through a period of making next to nothing but News! So, the future we are going through a period of upheaval at the moment. There's no question that News in and of itself will always be there. I think there's still a demand for digestive News but there's denying that whilst the share is very high, the audience, across the board and TV, the actual number is going down and we have to recognise that. I still think that STV News at Six (or versions of it), have got a long-term future. People get very excited about the number of thousands of hits that certain pieces, the number of views that a video has got, it still doesn't come close, even close, to what we're doing on TV but we have to recognise it. There is a change afoot and we have to be part of that but I think, because of our identity and because of what we deliver to STV as a News station, I beg your pardon, as a TV station, it is News that will deliver that online as well more than anything else.

I: Forgetting News and Current Affairs, and more broadly over the last twenty-four years, what have you enjoyed about your time at STV?

R: STV was a great place to work. People say that all the time. We've had a lot of people leaving here. Recently there have been reorganizational changes and that's the one thing they always say that they will miss the people. They will miss the banter and the atmosphere in the Newsroom. I think that's because we're small. I certainly felt (and it's a long time now since I was at the BBC) that Radio was a bit like that but the TV Newsroom over there definitely wasn't! It was big and people had self-interest. It was quite a dampening down place. There wasn't a lot of enthusiasm there. Coming here, that was completely different and that's continued to be so. There are big characters, you had good fun, sometimes under people's shadows a wee bit. I think sometimes we could do, be a bit harder on, well, "Why wasn't this done?! Why did we make a mistake?" But it's such a relaxed place to be and I think that, hopefully if we can harness it properly, that can encourage creativity and it would particularly mean that young people with talent don't feel that they can't express themselves. So, we've also done - and maybe it fits in with my personality - I explained earlier on that I'm from Hillington and you tend to find people from my background, our background, are thinking and it wasn't until I was probably in my forties that I stopped thinking 'somebody's going to tap me on the shoulder and say, "You've been found out!"' I genuinely had that, you know, 'am I still getting away with this?' But that's not an uncommon feeling. I mean, that's a common feeling that people have. But what STV, how STV fed into that was always, well, we'll show them! We'll show them that we're good enough to do it! So, it's like having this monolith next door. The BBC. It's always, I always enjoyed beating the BBC, showing them up for their slowness, their pomposity, it's almost a chipiness that I think comes maybe from that "No, they're not going to catch me out!" sort of style. And as a Station I feel we've got that. We can react quickly. We can perform very well and the times we've done that it's been very, very rewarding. That we have delivered better programmes with fewer resources than others have. The one thing that we all (and the great fun of working here!) but we still operate under that STV's small. It's cheap. That's still the perception that people have and I'm always trying to fight against it

[61:16]

I: Any kind of funny stories or anecdotes about people that would help, sort of, sum up the atmosphere of the Station? We ask this of everybody because people who are reading the transcripts of these oral history projects need to try and get some sort of sense of what it's like and was it a fun place?

R: Most of my anecdotes come from you, actually! I'm trying to think. I should have thought that you're always asked that. That's one thing you should always have in your pocket and I've gone blank.

I: I don't think we've had the John Keene with drugs.

R: Well that would be...

I: Which would be [inaudible]

R: Davy Lees, cameraman, was working on a story with Angus Simpson and Angus was doing a story on the problems of drugs which have been throughout our time in Scotland, well in my time at STV, has been a running story. So, John Keene, under Angus's instruction, asked Davy Lees to go out and get some GVs of drugs. Presumably he meant down at Elie States, syringes, all that stuff. Davy Lees comes back with all these arty shots of dogs walking about the streets so, "What the heck is that?!!" So, John Keene said, "What the heck is that?!" "Oh, I thought you said 'dugs'!!" I'm trying to think...

I: You must have had, doing live stuff with people in the background and shouting and...

R: Well, I always, I do remember, for example, it was St. Andrew's Night, yeah, well, OK, it was St. Andrew's Night 1998 or '99, round about that period. Sitting there with the Lucky White Heather and we'd introduced this new system. Was it Omnibus or Columbus? I began to lose track of all these various names and within the first week it was clear it wasn't working. So, we went on air one night, I think it was a Thursday night after three nights of disaster and the Producer at the time went on air and said, "Oh, my God! We're going to crash off air!" Literally, on air! And the whole system had gone down and the only think that worked that night was the Sport because it was taped so cameras were moving and, at that time, over the shoulders were generated automatically so with the cameras moving the over the shoulder came over your face and the whole thing was a farce! I mean, I'm looking at the camera but the camera's over there - dreadful! So, we abandoned the programme after fifteen minutes and just couldn't go on any longer. And I always remember, "Right, can you pat for a minute forty-five?" So, I came out with this whole speech of, you know, apologies, it's not the standard that you expect and blah-di-blah-di-dah!

I: I remember being at the Newsroom and [inaudible through laughter]...

R: I didn't want to say that! So, we came out and we came downstairs and as we came off air, Continuity had filled in the gap with this programme called Edge of the Land, which was a fantastic programme STV had done with helicopters, literally helicopters.

I: Shot by Tony White?

R: Yes. Beautiful pictures of the coastline of Scotland and that was on to fill the gap of News coming off. We came down to the Newsroom and the phone was going bah, bah, bah! And we thought, 'Oh no, this is going to be dreadful!' And almost without exception, every one of us who answered the phone heard people say, "What was that programme? That was brilliant!" So, and then for a period after that, I'd be walking down the street and people would come up to me, you know, in Sauchiehall Street as we were still in Cowcaddens at the time, people would come up! I remember this guy with a newspaper over his face - "How's it going, John?!" And finally, and it shows how we connect with the audience, I walked down one lunchtime, another disaster and I'm walking down the road, quite dejected, and there was this older lady standing at the bus stop just at Trader Joes, and she says to me, "Oh," she says, "things have been very bad for you!" And I said, "Och, it's just the way it is!" "I can understand," she says, "I just lost my husband two months ago and my brother-in-law last week" and I thought, 'Gees, not quite the same comparison' but what I always remember is that just as she was leaving, she said (and this is a woman who has lost her husband and she's obviously very close) and she takes my hand and she says, "I'll be thinking of you!" Yeah! So many good stories! But you've got more stories!

I: And also, again just record for the transcript, you're the longest serving News Presenter in the history of the Station.

R: Am I? I didn't know that. I know I'm pretty close to it. I know Shereen did it for quite a long time. She must have been about...

I: You did twenty-four, she was here for twenty-three years.

R: Well, there you go.

I: So, you were twenty-four and of course, before that, there would have been Marion White, John Toye, Bill Tenant, Bill Kenna, all of these people so...

R: I wouldn't want to make too much of that! Be cautious!

I: You've not been found out!

R: Not yet! There you go!

I: Thanks for your time!

R: Thank you! Is that OK?

I: Yes, bang on!

R: I hope it wasn't too dull!

I: It wasn't!

[67:32]

[End of Recording]