IT'S been a few years ago now, of course, but Jackie Bird remembers her time working on this very paper - 6 am starts and all.

"That was a baptism of fire," she says of those days in the mid-1980s. "I came out of radio to join the Evening Times when it was based in Albion Street.

"You walked into almost an entire roomful of men. I remember the comments, the jokes, the people going down to the pub at lunchtime!"

Later still, of course, Jackie ended up at BBC Scotland, going on to become one of its best-known faces.

She recently celebrated 25 years as a presenter on Reporting Scotland, but she also works each Hogmanay to see out the old year and usher in the new. This Wednesday's edition, Hogmanay Live 2014, will be her 16th.

It will take place at Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket, and will feature King Creosote, Blazin' Fiddles, Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain, and, live from Edinburgh, Twin Atlantic.

Jackie says she tends not to experience butterflies on Reporting Scotland - but it's a different story at Hogmanay.

"Hogmanay is the biggest night of the year, in terms of viewers and in what is now known, in telly circles, as appointment-to-view scheduling, - essentially, people say they have to watch their telly.

"Now, whether they watch it because they adore the music, or they think the fireworks are great, or they just want to make sure they don't miss the bells and need a time-check, the pressure is there.

"Firstly, there's such a big audience, but secondly, there's also such a cross-section of the Scottish public. What goes through my mind is, 'Don't Mess This Up'. That's it, pure and simple. Does it lead to butterflies? You bet it does."

Nor would Jackie give it up in favour of a quiet Hogmanay at home with her family. "Not really," she says. "I enjoy the programme so much. A lot of the other channels do big New Year's Eve events so well, but they aren't live."

Jules Holland's Hootenanny music show is a good example of a show that is pre-recorded, "but there's a fall-out from that: people think, well, if they're not doing it live, then everybody must be pre-recording. Not our show, though: it's live - the clue is in the title. It's a real thrill."

The show will reflect what Jackie has termed a "frenetic" year for Scotland, with the independence referendum, the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, all falling within the space of nine weeks and captivating Scotland and the wider world. "There is a certain sadness," she concedes, "that it is all over now."

Like every other journalist, she loves the sheer variety that her job can offer.

"The thing about news is that, of course there are days when you go in and see the running-order of that night's Reporting Scotland and you think, 'Yeah, I've done that, it's that time of year again ...' But at twenty-five minutes past six, something could happen that throws everything up in the air. That's one aspect.

"Another is that people say there are no new news-stories, but of course there are. And there are different ways of handling it.

"If I'm ever talking to groups of schoolkids, or journalism students, I always say this is genuinely a job that, when I arrive in the office, I do not know what's ahead of me."

Startling shifts in technology have revolutionised TV news programmes like Reporting Scotland.

"In the past, the anchor or presenter was very much an island," Jackie says. "Once he or she was in the studio, that was it. They might have a dodgy earpiece, and someone telling them which camera to look at,

"But now, I've got my computers in front of me throughout the programme. During the end headlines in one recent programme, earlier this month, I was able to say, 'It's just dropped that three hostages, not two, had been killed in the siege in Sydney - we should update that.'

"If something has just dropped from a reputable source then, as long as I run it past the editor, I can add that to the programme.

"If it's a piece of breaking news, I can bring it to the viewers, with the qualification that it has only just been reported, that it can't be verified at the moment, but here's what people are saying.

"Social media is important, too. I've got my Tweet board up in front of me." she continues. "There was a big fire off the M8 a few months ago. I found out from social media that it was just a warehouse fire. That mattered to me while we were on air - it was important to me."

You will never, however, see Jackie tweeting under her own name. "My personal view is that news presenters should not be conveying their own opinions about anything, although other people do it as a publicity tool for their own organisations. and they stick to the news agenda. But it's a fine line, and it's easy to veer off the news agenda."

Jackie has now regained her fitness following a profound scare two years ago when she came close to death following complications relating to a twisted bowel.

She smiles. "I go into shops and people genuinely ask how I'm keeping. All I can say is, 'I'm fine - thank you for asking!'"

Jackie is now looking to do a special programme on the commemoration of the Great War. "It's a subject that has had to fight for airtime amidst such a busy news schedule this year," she says.

The First World War has long been one of Jackie's passions - "It's my personal interest, and I can't get enough of it" - and she "would very much" like to visit some of the battlefield sites on the Western Front as part of her researches.

€¢ Hogmanay Live 2014, BBC Scotland, Wednesday, 11.30pm