Former BBC journalist Jackie O’Brien has been presented with this year’s Barron Trophy, recognising outstanding journalism achievements in the Highlands and Islands. Jackie received the prestigious honour at the annual Highlands and Islands Press Ball and Media Awards held at the Kingsmills Hotel, Inverness, on Friday 7 February 2025.
Jackie began her career at Moray Firth Radio in 1988 as a trainee in the newsroom under Mike Hurry’s watchful eye. She moved to BBC Radio Highland in the early 1990s, where she went on to become a senior broadcast journalist and a key member of the national news team at BBC Scotland for 30 years.
Jackie covered the Highlands and Islands for the station’s flagship Reporting Scotland television news programme and radio news outlets such as Good Morning Scotland. She has reported on most of the main events and issues affecting a patch the size of Belgium. From the high-profile murders of Renee Macrae and Alasdair Wilson to the challenges of the weather, transportation links, employment and Covid in rural communities, Jackie was regularly seen in our screens, looking windswept and exposed to the elements, reporting from the midst of the area’s mountains covering rescues, skiing and investigating the plight of some of Scotland’s most endangered species.