Daily Record On The Boyle With Susan's First Record

Daily Record features hack Laura Coventry is probably experiencing a bitter-sweet feeling today.

On the day her byline is splashed across the front page - with what can only be described as a good old fashioned exclusive - Coventry and her colleagues are in the midst of a 48 hour strike protesting at redundancies which have cut a swathe through the title's Glasgow news room and at regional offices in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.

The story is of course about the Britain's Got Talent and YouTube phenomenon Susan Boyle - the 47-year-old West Lothian wifie who has grown men (including me) reaching for the Kleenex. Coventry unearthed a 10-year-old recording of Susan singing Cry Me A River on a charity CD which was recorded at Whitburn Academy as part of the Millennium celebrations.

While US talk show giants Larry King and Oprah battle it out to be first to get the Blackburn Diva on their shows, the Record was out in the sticks, doing what they do best(most of the time) and digging up a cracker of a story which is bouncing all round the world as I type.

What's also interesting is how this great newspaper yarn can only work properly with the new media tools which many traditional journos are still getting to grips with and by uploading the audio track to their website the Record can watch online traffic to go through the roof.

On a more local level, and not to be outdone by the Record or the likes of CBS - who sent a film crew to Susan's local boozer - the West Lothian Courier were showing they have adapted to the new media world and sent along reporter Richard Mooney to record a video interview.

The Courier hack has a somewhat different style from the fawning US interviews I've seen aired and like a true pro he gets right to the crux of the matter and asks the all important question about how Pebbles (the cat) is handling his owner's new found fame. Susan, in her own inimitable style answers: "The usual cat way, she disnae bother".

Priceless.

NB: Shame on the petty and always-behind-the-story BBC Scotland. Their website claims Susan's Cry Me A River recording has "emerged on the internet". It goes on claim "West Lothian Council features a clip of the song on its website". Go to he WLC website and the link takes you back to the original Daily Record scoop.