Senior Journalist – BBC (Belfast)

Job Reference: 14780

Band: D

Salary: £39,800 – £47,126 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Contract type: Recruiting a mixture of full-time, part-time, fixed-term and continuing contracts.

Location: Office Base is Belfast

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

• Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
• Benefits – We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.

Freelancers are eligible to apply for an internal role if they are on a Worker Contract and they have worked continuously for 6 months. If they have worked for less than 6 months continuously or have a break of 3 weeks or more between engagements, they must seek Divisional HR approval to apply for an internal role prior to submitting an application.

If they are unsure which contract they are on, they can speak to their booker or the HR BP, however if it helps – both a PAYE freelance or Modus Gross contract is considered a Worker contract and covered by the Worker terms found here.

BBC News NI is in the process of transforming its news operation to make it future fit in a rapidly changing and diversifying news media climate, with digital at its heart. We’re looking for Senior Journalists who can be part of this change and help drive content with a digital focus. The successful candidates will be experienced Journalists with high production skills, a reputation for creative thinking and a thorough grasp of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and journalism law.

Senior Journalists need to be creative thinkers who can lead journalists in their area to deliver the best possible output for our audiences. Senior Journalists will be required to:

•  Lead daily production meetings in their output area and then assign tasks to Journalists, Reporters and Researchers.
• Commission output for their production area and deploy resources in a cost-effective way.
• Motivate teams to think creatively and respond quickly to breaking news.
• Contribute to the production of original journalism.
• Provide forward planning and production support.
• Deal with complex legal and editorial issues.
• Influence BBC News NI’s news agenda, advise output editors and News Content colleagues on the importance of particular issues.
• Work mostly at base but on location as required.
• Support junior staff members to help them grow and develop in their role.
• Be responsible for subbing and publishing copy and social media posts as well as new Curation and Growth roles.
• Support the management team through a period of change in the newsroom.

• Experience of news production in a multimedia newsroom.
• Ability to manage resources, staff, and technical facilities.
• Extensive editorial experience and strong news judgement.
• Experience in managing people, good interpersonal and communication skills and a keenness to collaborate.
• A resilient and highly-motivated self-starter.
• An ability to work effectively and collaboratively in a small team and perform well under pressure.
• An understanding of how audiences operate in the digital space.
• Experience of using the latest technology in the field and the newsroom.
• Used to operating calmly under pressure, have sound and trusted news judgement and be able to take tough decisions when necessary.
• A sound knowledge of politics, current affairs and ongoing issues in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and further afield
• Ability to write clear and concise copy to run across all outlets

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.