Karen Patterson on her ‘amazing BBC journey’

Karen Patterson has worked with many familiar faces – among them Noel Thompson and author Colin Bateman.

Now she’s looking forward to a different pace of life, as she prepares to step way from the BBC airwaves.

She talked to Talkback’s William Crawley about her career and future plans.

Karen grew up on a dairy farm near Bangor, County Down, which her father had farmed since 1947.

“He was a very talented farmer, but voraciously interested in news, so news has been around me all my life,” she said.

When she was 17, she took part in a young farmers’ trip to Kesh in County Fermanagh.

“That was a crowd of kids having a great day down in Fermanagh and it had the most awful ending,” she said

“We were literally the first cars there.”

After doing a journalism course at the College of Business Studies in Belfast, she took a job with the Bangor Spectator at the age of 19 where the deputy editor was future author Colin Bateman.

She left the Spectator to go to Downtown-Cool FM when she felt she had “outgrown” the newspaper.

She started in the BBC in 2000 and vividly remembers her television debut on BBC Newsline.

“The first couple of times I had to go on air I was physically shaking and was told by sports presenter Jackie Fullerton that if you aren’t nervous you shouldn’t be doing the job.

“Journalism is changing, often presenters are very personality-led. We find out a lot about personalities and presenters on air,” she said.

“I have this tenet – this basic instinct – which is let others do the talking and you be the vehicle that allows their stories to be told.”

So after years of early morning starts as co-presenter on BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster, what’s she looking forward to the most?

“Feeling awake would be lovely,” she laughed.

“I’m quite excited about it, I’ve been here for 20 years and it’s been an amazing journey, but just to be able to pick projects and do things at a bit of a different pace.”

You can hear Karen Patterson talk about her BBC career on Talkback on BBC Radio Ulster at 12 noon on Monday 30 December.