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About Pauline McLean

Pauline McLean | 15:24 UK time, Tuesday, 20 May 2008

I'm Pauline McLean and I'll be bringing you my view from the South Bank... of the River Clyde.

I've been ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland's arts correspondent for 11 years now - definitely one of the more pleasant jobs in Scotland.

Unlike newspapers, where I spent most of my early career, radio and television require you to meet your interviewees in person - so I get to travel the length and breadth of the country too.

There are plenty of behind the scenes stories - which only my closest family and friends normally get to hear about - but this blog might allow me to pass on some of the little snippets and insights that don't always make ´óÏó´«Ã½ news.

A bit about me. I've wanted to be a journalist since I was 14. At 15, I persuaded the editor of one of the two local papers in my home town of Dumbarton, to give me a job, freelancing on the Flourish, the monthly newspaper for the archdiocese of Glasgow.

These days, it's a priests-only operation but back then it had a string of lay-people writing and I got the chance to write about everything from church fetes to anti-drugs campaigns.

Realising, even at that tender age, the restrictions of the genre, I lobbied the other local newspaper editor for a job and got myself regular holiday shifts on the Dumbarton Reporter for the best part of five years, while I did a degree in English and Scottish literature at Glasgow University.

In 1989, I landed my dream job - while still studying at university - as pop columnist for the Evening Times, writing a weekly column about the Glasgow pop scene.

Endless gigs, LPs (it was a long time ago) and interviews with all my favourite singers - among them Eddi Reader, Sharleen Spiteri, James Grant, Edwyn Collins and Roddy Frame.

I was ousted by Bryan Burnett - but I forgive him as I would never have got my degree otherwise.

I did a postgraduate in journalism at University of Wales, College of Cardiff, returned to Scotland for a couple of years to work in local papers, and then returned to Wales for five years to work for its national newspaper The Western Mail.

I was arts editor there in 1997 when at least seven of my friends faxed or posted (no e-mail then!) the advert for my current job - the first full-time arts correspondent in ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland's history. I got the job, and the rest is my history.

I'm married with a three year old son, so life is a little hectic, but I hope to be able to find the time to share some of the behind the scenes stories of my job.

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