Talk:John MacKay (journalist)

Notability
How can you say John MacKay isn't notible enough to have a Wikipedia article? John is a very well known face in Scotland, as he is the main anchor of STV news programme Scotland Today. GMc talk  22:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * America-centrism. Some people on wikipedia think if it's American and obscure it's okay, well-known-but-not-known-to-Americans is not okay. --MacRusgail (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This come from a interview from http://web.archive.org/web/20030308235942/http://scotlandtoday.scottishtv.co.uk/team/john_mackay.shtml John has also had his first novel published. The Road Dance (published by Luath Press Ltd) is a powerful and evocative story of infanticide in an enclosed Scottish community. "By its very nature, writing for broadcast news has to be fast and concise. Writing a novel was so different, but I revelled in the freedom of it."

Writing a novel had been a latent ambition for John until he developed this plot. "I knew the story was strong enough, the question was whether my writing could match it."

Despite the success with the novel, John will continue his career in news. "The best part is undoubtedly the buzz of presenting a live news programme every day. It’s also fascinating following the progression of a news story from when it first breaks. That thrill never leaves you."

Over his career he has covered a number of important stories - including the Lockerbie bombing, the opening of the Scottish Parliament and various general elections. He says: "It's difficult to say which story has been the most important. Undoubtedly the one that had the greatest impact on me was the Dunblane tragedy and subsequent inquiry."

His broadcasting career began at BBC Radio Scotland. "As a student, I’d been told by an executive on commercial radio that I would never make it as a broadcaster, so it was some surprise when I secured a place on a BBC news trainee scheme."

On television when things go wrong, they go wrong very publicly indeed - as happened when a new computer system was introduced to Scotland Today and suffered a few teething troubles. John says: "It was a nightmare. We knew from as soon as we went on air that things were falling apart and everything that can go wrong did, until the final ignominy of having to apologise and abandon the programme."

John believes that anyone who wants to be a newsreader should want to be a journalist first, and take any opportunity they can to get to experience what journalists do and how newsrooms work.

"You must be interested in news," he says. "If you want to be a newsreader just to get on the telly, then I think you should think of getting involved by a different route."

John's choice of a career has left him with no regrets, although some of the clothes he has chosen to wear on camera do make him cringe.

"Fortunately I escaped the fashion black hole that was the 70s and 80s, but you wouldn’t be a broadcaster if you hadn’t worn ties that frighten you in the dark, or hairstyles that look like they were supported by scaffolding. That’s all long gone. I take my role as a fashion icon very seriously!"

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