Thanks Dad: back to the future for a positive Scottish media alternative. He championed young journalists both in his senior roles at the Herald & Times and, after leaving the group in 2015, with his new venture, the news website Positively Scottish. Starting as a reporter in Glasgow, he soon joined the newsdesk, moving on to be Night News Editor. They vote with their cursors and shun articles that leave them bored, unfulfilled or even depressed. (We reckon Positively Scottish will be one of the first sites in the world to marry solutions journalism with a national/regional USP.). This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's He was a first class editor, with a particular knack for coming up with the perfect introduction. Recently, we were able to dish out hundreds of face masks to our most loyal members just doing our bit to maintain PPE supplies across the nation, and around the world in fact. inaccuracy or intrusion, then please 1/gavin-williamson-whatsapp-message-teachers-work-pandemic/, A time to pause in honour of Queen of Scots. Positively Scottish: so why we dont harness the Scottish USP to an agenda of solutions journalism, and see if theres an audience for that? Always your Freitag": the Brian letters at McMaster University'; 'Havergal Brian's Letter to Herbert Thompson: some implications'; ', 'A Plaited Music: Ronald Stevenson at 70' in 'Meeting Ronald Stevenson', symposium in. This article is about the British music critic and author. You can text in live, or email anytime: earlybreakfastclub@times.radio youll get a membership number and thats you in the door. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself. He lived in England from 1971 until his death, first in London and from 1992 in Gloucestershire. So no, nerves are good, [they] keep you on your toes. Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. I finish the programme at 6am. Outside of work, Calum Macdonald was a loyal friend and a very proud father. In the past, the journalists job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Calum Macdonald Journalist; Born April 6 1976; Died October 2 2008. The couple separated latterly, but remained close. And why? Listen to the audio pronunciation of Calum MacDonald (journalist) on pronouncekiwi In 1990, the confident young man of ability was encouraged to apply to The Herald by the papers then education correspondent, Barclay McBain (now executive editor), who had met him during a press trip to West Germany. This is day two. Calum loved being at the middle of a breaking story but not, like some reporters, at the scene of the action he preferred to be back in the office, coordinating the coverage, bringing to bear his considerable flair for logistics. I also pop up across the rest of the schedule if other people are taking holidays. He was 55. Tuning in at 5am every day is no mean feat and it deserves rewards. Its that kind of ambition to progress, and I think that somewhere like the BBCs really good at opportunities like that as well., When posed with the question of whether radio is in decline, Calum offered a valid counter argument: I think radio is changing, were certainly very aware of that at 5 Live, that now its not just about what youre doing on the radio, its about how youre creating an impact with it, what are you doing online to either match or enhance your onair stuff, so online is a really great way of reaching new people.. Calum emerg If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can The not-for-profit organisation's founding directors include Calum Macdonald, aged 54 and a half, a former digital editor of the . Nostalgic memories? Data returned from the Piano 'meterActive/meterExpired' callback event. Calum won, appropriately enough, with ineluctably. Calum covers the news on the Times Radio breakfast show. Data returned from the Piano 'meterActive/meterExpired' callback event. At his trial, Watson's defence claimed the incident might never have reached court had the images not been published following the tussle with Macdonald. Somehow, you never quite believe people will actually want to be part of the programme, but there you've been, every day at 5am. He has also composed a number of works, mainly piano pieces and songs. He came from a line of journalists: his grandfather started a local paper in Buckie while his father, Alastair, was a sports writer at the Press & Journal, specialising in football. As a reporter, Night News Editor, Digital Editor for the Herald &. I am LIVE on the radio from my actual HOME in the Western Isles this morning 7am-10am on Times Radio! Biography. Occasionally I live the showbiz dream and go for a boozy lunch top tip: pace yourself, enforce a strict cut off for drinking at 6pm, and then hit the water youre welcome. contact the editor here. From their very first ceilidh dance way back in 1973 to playing to a crowd of 50,000 fans over a wet weekend in Stirling a year ago, Calum MacDonald I play the accordion. A crossword buff, not long after joining The Herald, he started setting them. You may request to have this data removed at any time. This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network. FORMER Stirling Observer reporter Calum Macdonald died from cancer last week at the age of just 32. We will never share the data you submit here with a third party. He wrote several books, notably volumes on Brahms, Schoenberg, John Foulds, Edgard Varse, the Scottish composer-pianist Ronald Stevenson[2] and a three-volume study of the 32 symphonies of Havergal Brian. Taking on the problems and challenges in journalism. Special guests and speakers had backgrounds in different areas of radio and broadcasting, from presenters to marketing executives, and the day aimed to give students a flavour of the industry. He's had more exclusives than I've had school dinners. But getting up at 5am? He was respected and admired by colleagues for his quick intelligence, decisiveness, cool head under pressure and capacity for sheer hard work. Tell us about your Early Breakfast Club and how to get involved. That was a sickening morning. "I took a simple little theme and developed it": Shostakovich's string concertos and sonatas' in Pauline Fairclough and David Fanning (eds), 'Sense and Sound: Gerhard's Fourth Symphony' (, 'Visionary and Craftsman: Scriabin and Enescu' (, 'Visionary Ecstasy: Szymanowski's Third Symphony' (, 'Unreconciled Spirit: Franz Liszt 100 Years On' (, 'Sombre Tragedy: Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Symphonies' (, 'John Foulds (18801939). More funding will mean more journalism, more readers, and more work opportunities. Whats the most interesting/challenging part of your job? We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself. 'The Orchestral Music' in Colin Scott-Sutherland (ed). ' I think have patience, work hard, and itll happen when it happens. On the P&J, he and colleagues had a competition to see who could come up with the most obscure word in an introduction, a word the sub editors would have to leave in because there was no appropriate alternative. Calum, the eldest of three, had a flair for English at secondary school. We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse. Its a detailed piece of work, based on the type of interviewing and statistical analysis he later becomes renowned for in a career covering sport, mainly football, including four World Cups, and Aberdeen FC reigning supreme under Alex Ferguson. While inside, the gangster - still clearly alive - dropped his trousers to show he had not been stabbed or shot. He has integrity, he's made history, and I firmly believe his journalism has changed the world . He played cricket and football (he was goalkeeper in the school team), and did stage management in the drama club, an early sign of his talent for organising. I think as well, enjoying it, if it feels like a total task and youre just having to drag yourself through your programme every week, if thats not enjoyable then sack it and do something that you actually want to do. View the profiles of professionals named "Calum Macdonald" on LinkedIn. Calum Macdonald's Post. Its beginning to feel a bit like Christmas, Thanks Boris, youve replaced Covid restrictions with crippling guilt. Their daughter, Mhairi, was born in 1996. It should be free, for maximum access, and run as a not-for-profit, since good, useful journalism ought to be a social value, not just a commercial commodity. CALUM Macdonald, who has died aged 55, was a journalist and crosswords editor who spent most of his career at The Herald. The full weekend schedule announced yesterday includes, on Saturday mornings, Times columnist and critic Hugo Rifkind, winner of both 'Critic of the Year' and the 'Best of Humour Award' at the Press Awards. But within a year he had switched to literature, attaining an honours degree. Presenting news radio programmes has been my dream since I was 11 years old. Terms & Conditions | Cookies | Contact Us. Looking back on his time at university, Calum regards FreshAir as hugely important, describing it as just a good playground, to try stuff out. A crossword buff, not long after joining The Herald, he started setting them. Calums mother Elizabeth (nee Mitchell), a graduate in maths and moral philosophy at Aberdeen University, was a school teacher before having a family. Thats commitment. So it seems entirely proper that Positively Scottish launches thanks to a legacy created by part of my share of his will. Flashback: its 60 years ago, and a keen young journalist, whos getting used to the big city ways of Aberdeen after moving from Buckie, a small port on the north-east of Scotland, wins a national prize for a thesis on the UK fishing industry, submitted as part of his training. This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network. Calum recently worked on an exclusive with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), highlighting the unhealthiness of many relationships between YouTubers and their adoring fans. The Celtic rockers, who formed on Skye in 1973, bowed out after 45 years with two . MALCOLM "Calum" Macdonald, who has died of cancer aged 32, was a journalist of immense esteem, integrity and ability whose. If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to Calum MacDonald Profiles | Facebook People named Calum MacDonald Find your friends on Facebook Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. This website is published by As Group Digital Editor for four years, he brought strict standards of courtesy and fairness to the online forum, never shrinking from enforcing them but always taking the time to explain to users who had infringed the rules, why their behaviour was unacceptable. heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment. And on the News team, we were really ambitious, I mean we were doing programmes that rival professional media organisations. For these and other journalistic purposes he used the nom-de-plume Calum MacDonald because at the outset of his writing career, which began with record reviewing for the journal Records & Recording, confusion arose between him and the composer Malcolm MacDonald, who was a long-established record reviewer for The Gramophone. Nowadays, Calum is living his dream: Im currently a broadcast journalist with BBC Radio 5 Live, so primarily producing programmes, occasionally reporting on various bits and pieces, reading the news from time to time, and recording various interviews and podcasts. He has the - almost - unique experience of being Health Secretary during a pandemic, and not many can claim that (other than Sajid Javid). Edit Now. The one bit advice that really used to annoy me was to be myself, and I used to hate that. Hes old school with a modern twist, and I think thats inspiring. News UK & Ireland Ltd1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GFUnited Kingdom. Calum, the eldest of three, had a flair for English at secondary school. A solution in solutions journalism: its a well documented fact that the UK follows after many American trends think music, TV, food. We are doing this to improve the experience forour loyalreaders and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. A Gannett Company. But it needs start-up funding: Even before the dementia kicked in, Dad was too old school to understand digital. Crosswords, I hear you. Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. Born in Dumbarton in April, 1976, Calum was dux of Keil School before going to Aberdeen. Malcolm MacDonald (also known by the alias "Calum MacDonald") (26 February 1948 - 27 May 2014) was a British author, mainly about music. Macdonald was unfazed by reputation. Only 12 months after graduating, he landed himself a staff contract as a producer on Radio 5 Live. We are lucky at The Herald. This byline is for a different person with the same name. Calums mother Elizabeth (nee Mitchell), a graduate in maths and moral philosophy at Aberdeen University, was a school teacher before having a family. Presented with images of the incident and informed he was being recorded, the former Labour peer answered: "I can't say that that's me. You need to go and meet people where theyre at, you cant expect them just to come tumbling across your radio station.. He played cricket and football (he was goalkeeper in the school team), and did stage management in the drama club, an early sign of his talent for organising. On the P&J, he and colleagues had a competition to see who could come up with the most obscure word in an introduction, a word the sub editors would have to leave in because there was no appropriate alternative. In 2004, Macdonald instigated a Herald investigation into the prevalence of cash machines in deprived areas charging customers for usage, with the matter then raised in a Commons committee chaired by his old friend John McFall. Presenter | Times Radio Breakfast, Friday-Sunday 6am Event host, writer, podcast host Im back in bed by 6:45am and asleep by 7:30am. Itll start small, as an online magazine with a guarantee of at least one new story six days a week. Father and daughter would always go together at midnight the day the latest instalment was released, to buy their copy. That allows the site to be funded through its proof-of-concept phase, with a view to attracting external finance and eventually becoming self-sustaining. He is survived by Christine, the Liberal Democrat general election candidate in Edinburgh West, Mhairi, a politics student at the university of Edinburgh, and his twin sisters, Morag and Shona. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. In the words of Roy Thomson, owning an ITV franchise is a licence to print money and the newspaper barons also revel in circulations that total millions. As Group Digital Editor for four years, he brought strict standards of courtesy and fairness to the online forum, never shrinking from enforcing them but always taking the time to explain to users who had infringed the rules, why their behaviour was unacceptable. By Calum Macdonald May 12, 2015 Experience Co-founder PositivelyScottish.scot Jun 2016 - Present6 years 8 months Scotland Helping run a not-for-profit online magazine telling inspiring stories. Bed by 9:30pm, get ready to do it all again. Biography Calum Macdonald is a presenter and journalist on Times Radio. 66 talking about this. Required fields are marked *. You know what to do if you like this articlemore importantly, come and read all the articles on http://positivelyscottish.scot/ !! They read the next one together before Mhairi started reading them herself. Theres less demand in England so its been a quieter few years on the ceilidh front. I'm not saying it's not me. Theres no other station that is set up primarily to target those students, and so its in a really good position to do that. For Calum, the pressure of live radio never wears off: The most recent time I [read the news] was exactly the same as the first time I did it. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience the local community. In 1990, the confident young man of ability was encouraged to apply to The Herald by the papers then education correspondent, Barclay McBain (now executive editor), who had met him during a press trip to West Germany. inaccuracy or intrusion, then please Yet Calum Macdonald has achieved the seemingly impossible. I wanted you to be the first to know about my new, free podcast called Whitehall Sources.I'm so grateful for your subscribing to get my written work here. Calum is a young, emerging broadcaster who's worked for BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio 5 Live. But surely organisations with a social mission would welcome an editorial partnership with a website which can demonstrate a niche but growing readership, committed to positive values? He began his journalism career in 1999 at the Lennox Herald, where then editor Bill Heaney gave him work experience. Despite a newspaper round into his mid-teens, the legal profession, rather than journalism, appeared to be Macdonald's chosen path and he began a law degree at Aberdeen in 1994. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com. Well, theres no shortage of talented journalists out there, including the hundreds of youngsters who complete university degree training every year and whose only viable career path seems now to lie in PR. 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