Meet the people working Christmas Day
Christmas Day on the Newstalk Newsdesk as featured in the Irish Independent 24/12/2015, by Katie Byrne.
“Aisling O’Rourke is a broadcast journalist for Newstalk. She was born in Tullamore, Co Offaly and is based in Dublin.
”I put myself forward to work on Christmas Day. Somebody needed to do it so I said ‘let’s just fill the spot and save any potential upset’.
”My shift starts at 2pm and finishes at about 10pm. I’d say it might just be myself and possibly one other journalist.
”This is my first Christmas working as a broadcast journalist (in Newstalk) but I hear it’s very quiet. However, the problem is that you can’t really phone people on Christmas Day to ask for an interview - unless of course something huge breaks.
”I’ll probably do Christmas dinner with my family on Christmas Eve and then we’ll have a Christmas breakfast before I hit the road at 12pm.
”I’ll bring in a couple of Tupperware boxes of my Mum’s Christmas cake and some turkey from the night before. That and several cups of coffee.
”I don’t know if I’ll go back to Tullamore that night. I’m off for the rest of Christmas so it might be easier to stay in Dublin. I have a family member who works on-call in St James [Hospital] so I might pop into him that night.
”I really don’t mind working on Christmas Day. Christmas is a time for family, so as long as I make the time for the family, then it doesn’t matter if it’s the day before.
”Besides, there tends to be great banter around the Christmas period and it’s nice to bring the news to people on a day that everyone tends to be in good form.””
