One of the most experienced broadcasters in Scotland has been axed by BBC Scotland as part of its cost-cutting exercise.
Inverness-based Iain MacDonald, 62, who has been described as Radio Scotland’s voice of the Highlands, has been told that after nearly 34 years with the corporation his post is going.
The National Union of Journalists said it was deeply concerned that Mr MacDonald, who as union spokesman had been prominent in the fight to save 17 journalists’ jobs in Scotland, was going to lose his own.
Mr MacDonald said: “Just as the BBC was announcing it had appointed a man one year younger than me (Tony Hall) to be Director General, at £450,000 a year, I got a phone call from Glasgow to say I was being sacked.
"I have to go down to Glasgow next week when I will be told why I am losing my job. I think I will keep my powder dry until then, but I will be appealing.”
Yesterday, other casualties of the cost-cutting were made public, including Seonag Mackinnon, the experienced education correspondent; Colin Wight, the Aberdeen-based correspondent; business correspondent Waseem Zakir; Bill Whiteford, the long-established presenter and ex-editor of the afternoon current affairs Newsdrive programme on Radio Scotland; political reporter Sarah Paterson, and reporters Nina Macleod, David Allison and Nuala Napier will also depart.
A BBC spokesman said then: "It is true some have been through our 'selection for retention process' and have been unsuccessful. However, that doesn't mean they are to be sacked. They will go into a redeployment pool to see if there are other suitable posts available."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers 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. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
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.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. 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. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article