Jackie Bird

Jackie Bird
Born Jackie Macpherson
(1962-07-31) 31 July 1962
Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Occupation Newsreader for BBC Scotland
Years active 1980 - present

Jackie Bird (née Macpherson, born 31 July 1962 in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire)[1] is a Scottish journalist and newsreader, currently anchor of BBC Scotland's news programme Reporting Scotland. Bird is also the current host of Hogmanay Live in Scotland and appears on many BBC Scotland shows.

Career

Bird was 17 when she started work for DC Thomson in Dundee working on teenage magazines and eventually became the pop editor at Jackie magazine.[2] [3] Subsequently she worked as a broadcast journalist on Radio Clyde's news team and then as a print journalist on the Glasgow Evening Times.[4] After working as a reporter for The Sun newspaper, Bird joined Television South in Maidstone as a reporter and presenter for the South East edition of regional news programme Coast to Coast.[5]

Bird left TVS to join BBC Scotland, making her debut as a main presenter of Reporting Scotland on Monday 16 October 1989. She currently shares the role as a sole anchor with veteran broadcaster Sally Magnusson. Alongside Reporting Scotland, she has also been a main presenter of key BBC Scotland event programming, including Hogmanay Live and the Scottish Children in Need opt-outs.

She is also a newspaper columnist and has written and produced comedy series The Lewis Lectures and Having it All for BBC Radio Scotland.

On 13 June 2012, Bird was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D Litt) in a graduation ceremony at the University of Glasgow.[6]

In October 2014 Bird celebrated 25 years of working on Reporting Scotland.[7] She is the longest serving newsreader on the programme.

Other work

Bird has also toured with Echo & the Bunnymen and worked with Paul Weller.[8]

In November 2016 she appeared as herself during the episode, Down and Out in series 7 Of Scottish sitcom Still Game.

Personal life

Bird attended Earnock High School in Hamilton, which has since closed following a merger with Blantyre High School.

In 2012 Bird had sections of her small and large intestine removed after suffering a rare bowel condition.[9]

Bird married Robin Weir in 2007. She was previously married to tabloid newspaper editor Bob Bird, with whom she has two children, Claudia and Jacob.[10]

References

  1. ↑ . p. 88. ISBN 1841830941. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ↑ "Jackie magazine - How a 'teenage bible' defined the 1970s". BBC News. 19 September 2013.
  3. ↑ "Jackie Bird interview". The Herald. 17 November 2012.
  4. ↑ "Jackie Bird profile". BBC Reporting Scotland. 6 January 2014.
  5. ↑ Coast to Coast: 1982 - 1992, Froglets Publications, 1992
  6. ↑ "Outstanding leaders in their field to receive honorary degrees" (Press release). University of Glasgow. 12 June 2012.
  7. ↑ Sayers, Louise (12 October 2014). "Jackie Bird: Celebrating 25 Years at Reporting Scotland". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  8. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/29619215 After 25 years, the question is...
  9. ↑ "BBC Scotland presenter Jackie Bird on mend after life-saving surgery".
  10. ↑ "Bird delighted to be making the headlines".

External links


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