Senior Journalist, Digital Live Pages/Live Blogs Weekends – BBC (London)

Package Description

Job Reference: 11231

Salary: £38,000 – £48,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Band: D

Work Pattern: 4 days per week, including weekend days, across a rota pattern
Contract type: x1 Continuing post
Location: London Broadcasting House

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 competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days holiday (1 of which is a corporation day) 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.

Job Introduction

We are looking for Senior Journalists to join the Digital Live pages/live blogs weekend team.

A Senior Journalist on the Digital Live team will be expected to take charge of live pages on the website, on-the-day coverage of major news stories and planned events in text and video, ensuring the content is rich, accessible and up to the minute.

Main Responsibilities

This editing role is within the Digital Live text team, which brings the biggest news stories in a real-time, live format – often known elsewhere as a “live blog” – to BBC audiences across the world.

The role often involves managing a team of Live writers and producers working on a fast-paced story as part of our real-time digital text coverage – assigning tasks, commissioning reporting, publishing posts and paying close attention to the flow, tone and editorial accuracy of the page, as well as video streams, clips, images and headlines.

We are looking for sharp editors full of ideas who can remain calm under pressure and to work collaboratively with others.

Senior Journalists on Live are involved in the forward planning of live coverage and can be deployed. They are also called upon to work on the digital news desks on certain shifts, including news editing and story writing.

These roles have a fixed weekend working pattern along with two weekday shifts.

Are You The Right Candidate?

You will be able to demonstrate the following key criteria:

Excellent writing skills and proven copy editing experience
Strong editorial judgement with experience handling breaking news on digital platforms and a proven track record of making the right decisions under intense pressure
Proven awareness of the distinctive nature and requirements of real-time, live digital coverage
Experience and understanding of the formats, tools, and techniques to plan and produce live digital coverage in both text and video
The ability to sift news material with speed and accuracy and devise and enact an editorial plan in collaboration with others
Experience of managing a team of reporters on daily, fast-paced live news coverage
Knowledge of audience data, search data and social media to improve storytelling, reach new audiences and broaden coverage
A track record of covering the UK and/or international news agenda and delivering insightful, high-quality journalism to audiences
Ability to spot a wide variety of live opportunities that will grow our weekend audience

About the BBC

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 visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/diversity/

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