Morning Briefing with Colin Kelly, one month in
Post categories: Morning Briefing
|14:12 UK time, Thursday, 19 May 2011
Colin Kelly, who presents Morning Briefing on BBC Radio Scotland, has sent us a few words about the show. Here's what he says;
Colin Kelly
It's just over a month since I joined BBC Radio Scotland as presenter of the new Morning Briefing programme and now I've got my feet under the desk I reckon it's a good time to tell you a little more about what I've been up to.
If you haven't listened yet, perhaps that's due to the 5.30am start time. I have the earliest of early starts and get out of bed at 3am (if you're up earlier let me know!) so I can be at my desk putting the programme together by about quarter to 4.
Colin Kelly at BBC Radio Scotland, 2011
It hurts, but I'm thoroughly enjoying being part of the BBC team and maybe you will catch the programme if you're up and about at some point over the summer for an early morning flight to a holiday destination.
Useful information to help you start your day is what Morning Briefing is all about.
That means the latest breaking news and travel information right at the top of the programme. If something's happened overnight Morning Briefing will tell you about it first. From dramatic breaking news like the killing of Osama Bin Laden to details of a late arrival at Glasgow Airport - 'Everything you need to know for the day ahead' is our mission statement.
Morning Briefing is designed to complement and lead the audience in to Good Morning Scotland. We've been given quite a relaxed brief which lets us expand and contract certain elements and adapt our running order depending on what's going on.
So if a major sporting event has a late finish - such as Rory McIlroy's collapse at the US Open Golf or John Higgins lifting the World Snooker title - we can put that right at the top of our programme. In the winter months I'd expect weather and travel information to have a high profile throughout the 30 minutes I'm on air.
Business news has a key part in the programme with a regular slot around 5.45am and each day around 5.55am we feature a different newsroom from the various BBC Scotland outposts - Orkney, Shetland, Inverness, Aberdeen, Selkirk and Dumfries. It's fascinating to get an insight into what's going on in other parts of the country and we sometimes get early details of stories which go on to make the national news.
I work closely with the Good Morning Scotland team and you've be amazed at the level of activity in our newsroom at such an early hour.
When I arrive Morning Briefing producer Richard Lumgair is in the middle of his overnight shift and has already put much of the programme together, setting up correspondents to comment on the latest foreign stories and deciding how we'll cover the Scottish news.
That leaves me to get on top of the travel information, the sport, and put together the newspaper review which we normally start the programme with.
Across the desk will be the Good Morning Scotland Senior Broadcast Journalist and by half past 4 we're joined by GMS presenters Gary Robertson and Hayley Millar who're told what stories they're covering and start researching and reading up on the papers.
Business presenter Waseem Zakir is in around 5am and brings with him that incredible journalistic gift of being able to store seemingly endless information in his head and deliver it flawlessly with hardly anything written down - a true force of nature so early in the morning!
At around 10 past 5 I pop into the studio for a quick chat with All Night Long host Ravi Sagoo about what's coming up on my programme. He's pleased to have some company but usually makes a comment that I should have brought some food in with me.
Then it's back to my desk for a final check through my running order and to print my scripts in case the computer crashes while I'm on air. Then I dash into the studio and get a practice read through as much as I can before half past 5.
Just outside the door as Morning Briefing goes on air there's a frenzy of activity among the GMS team as they set up guests, re-write scripts and generally gear up for the start of another day at BBC Radio Scotland.
Morning Briefing is on BBC Radio Scotland Monday to Friday, 0530-0600
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