Jackie Bird
1962-
Broadcaster
Jackie Bird is a weel kent face in Scottish journalism and news. Jackie is currently anchor of BBC Scotland's flagship news programme Reporting Scotland reporting from diverse locations such as Helmand, Hollywood, Wimbledon and Sri Lanka.
Born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Jackie was 17 when she started work for DC Thomson in Dundee working on teenage magazines and eventually became the pop editor at Jackie magazine. Subsequently she worked as a broadcast journalist on Radio Clyde’s news team and then as a print journalist on the Glasgow Evening Times. After working as a reporter for The Sun newspaper, Jackie joined Television South in Maidstone as a reporter and presenter for the South East edition of regional news programme Coast to Coast.
She has been a main presenter of Reporting Scotland and other BBC Scotland programming (including Hogmanay Live and Children in Need ) for over twenty year.
In 2002, she had an uncredited walk-on part in the Ronald Villiers sketch during the Hogmanay episode of Chewin' the Fat. She is also a newspaper columnist and has written and produced comedy series The Lewis Lectures and Having it All for BBC Radio Scotland.
In recent years Jackie has written and presented a number of Scottish and network documentaries including programmes on the war in Afghanistan and on the forgotten Scottish soldiers of the Korean War. Jackie is an ambassador for Poppy Scotland.
On June 13 2012 Jackie Bird was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by the University of Glasgow.
Interesting fact:
- Jackie has also worked as a backing singer for Paul Weller and bands The Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen.
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