Rona Dougall Explained

Rona Dougall
Birth Date:21 July 1966
Nationality:Scottish
Occupation:Broadcaster, journalist
Alma Mater:University of Edinburgh
Employer:STV (2011–present)
Sky News (1996–2011)
Radio Forth
Notable Works:Scotland Tonight
Sky News

Rona Dougall is a Scottish broadcast journalist and television presenter. She currently acts as a main anchor on STV's current affairs programme, Scotland Tonight.[1]

Brought up in Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, she attended Lenzie Academy, before graduating from the University of Edinburgh. Her broadcasting career began at Radio Forth. She then went on to become Scotland Correspondent at Sky News for over fifteen years, before being made redundant in 2011.

Three weeks after being made redundant from Sky, STV bosses offered Dougall a job as a co-anchor on the soon-to-be launched Scotland Tonight, after she spotted a post on the Facebook page of STV News anchor John MacKay.

She said: "John is a friend on Facebook and a couple of months ago he posted about this great new current affairs programme on STV. The show sounded right up my street and I phoned to see if they needed a reporter. They asked if I would be interested in presenting from the studio. I did a screen test and they offered me the job."[2]

Dougall first presented on the programme's second edition, on 25 October 2011, interviewing then-First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond.[3] She usually presents the programme on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and fills in on other editions in the absence of MacKay.[4]

Notes and References

  1. http://news.stv.tv/scotland/275328-welcome-to-scotland-tonight-stv-launches-new-current-affairs-programme/ Welcome to Scotland Tonight: STV launches new current affairs programme
  2. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/scotland-tonight-anchorwoman-on-how-she-found-1086166 Scotland Tonight anchorwoman on how she found her new job on Facebook
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yizu1Ikc3_o Alex Salmond vows to scrap Trident in independent Scotland
  4. News: Night vision: Scotland Tonight celebrates a year on air . Alice . Wylie . . 28 February 2019 . 15 March 2023.