Haley Bouma is a reporter and news presenter for STV News in Aberdeen. She’s worked for the company for eight years. With the channel, she mainly covers farming, fishing and rural affairs in the northeast of Scotland. Haley isn’t from a farming background but holds an Oceanography degree and has always enjoyed being outdoors.
She joined the Guild towards the end of last year after attending the annual Harvest Lunch in London in October and has most recently visited Brazil with the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ).
Here’s what a typical working day looks like for Haley…
6am – Stable routine
The day always starts with a cup of coffee before putting my horses out and mucking out their stables. Despite regularly being up early for a good proportion of my life, I wouldn’t class myself as a morning person, so caffeine is a must!
7.15am – Another coffee
After the horses are done, it’s straight home to get ready for work. I grab another cup of coffee as I apply my makeup and do my hair and leave the house just after 8am. Usually, I’d leave later but today my cameraman and I are due in Peterhead (about an hour away from the Aberdeen office) to cover a seafood conference.
10am – Conference coverage
We arrive for just before 10am, and after setting up some of our lighting and camera kit, we begin to gather interviewees for the piece. The aim of today’s conference is to connect seafood producers in the North East with buyers in Asia where there is an increasing demand. For producers in Aberdeenshire, it’s a prime opportunity as many are facing additional barriers in getting their products into closer markets like the EU.
12pm – Harbour filming
After we gather the interviews we head for Peterhead’s harbour, a short distance from the conference, to get some colour shots. A conference here looks like most conferences! Peterhead has Europe’s largest whitefish market so there’s always something going on to film. We get some fresh shots of the boats unloading their catch. I record a link on camera for the broadcast piece before recording a few presenter-led videos for STV’s social media channels.
1pm – Chippy lunch
The best thing about working near the fish markets, is the fish and chips – you don’t get much fresher produce! So, we grab a quick bite of lunch and a break before heading back to the office to get the news piece ready for STV News at 6.
3pm – Editing footage
We arrive back in the office just after 3pm. The footage gets ingested and I begin to edit and pull my script together with the producer for tonight’s News at Six.
4pm – Final edit
Once the clips for the piece are cut, and the script approved, I record the voiceover and paste it down along with the footage we gathered today. The result is a 2-minute 15-second piece, finished just 15 minutes before the programme. It’s a tight turnaround but still allows time for it to be checked before we go live at six.
6pm – Studio support
Since we’re a small team, we all take it in turns to do the autocue and help with the programme output so today. I print off the scripts for the presenter delivering them to the studio for the rehearsal en route to the gallery to run the autocue for the programme.
6.30pm – End routine
We’re off air for just before 6.30pm. I send a few emails to get a story set up for the next day, before heading back to the horse yard to get them ridden and put in for the night.
8.30pm – Evening wind-down
Once the horses are in, it’s time to head home. I usually heat up something I’ve batch cooked at the weekend, and tonight it’s spag bol. I iron my clothes for the day ahead and try to get to bed for 10pm, ready to start another busy day tomorrow!
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Harvest Lunch 2026
Our annual harvest celebration is the perfect opportunity to catch up with friends, colleagues and network with other agricultural communicators.
