Senior Journalist Reporter (Digital Journalism) Evergreen

Job Details

Job Reference: 14937
Band: D
Salary: £42,000 - £52,000, depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
Contract type: Permanent x 2 vacancies
Location: Salford

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.

Job Introduction

Are you passionate and driven to deliver the biggest and best sports news?

Can you help BBC Sport tell some of the key news stories of the day to an audience of millions?

• The ideal candidate would be an experienced, driven journalist with a track record of chasing and breaking the latest news from key sports including Rugby, Tennis and American Sports but with an ability to adapt to the biggest stories across a range of sports.
• The candidate will need to be able to build good relationships and have good contacts in order to improve BBC Sport’s coverage and content in an extremely competitive media landscape.
• You will be able to demonstrate an understanding of core BBC editorial standards and values of impartial journalism, trust, accuracy and creativity. You would have an awareness and experience of compliance and responsible journalism on difficult stories.
• You will know the strengths of the BBC Sport website and the needs of its audience – and how this role can help contribute to the department’s stretching targets for digital growth.
• The ideal candidate would be able to demonstrate leadership and ownership of their key sports’ news agenda, commissioning and delivering a consistent volume of news and helping to shape a content strategy for journalism in their area. They would be able to show a range and breadth of writing in news, live and insightful feature formats.
• You would be working primarily to the BBC Sport website and app, including its social media platforms, working closely with the Digital Journalism Editor and wider sports journalism team to drive daily sports news content across the key sports and related issues, themes and stories. You would also need to be able to build a network of colleagues to provide comprehensive coverage of your sports based around the news agenda.
• You would also work with teams across the rest of BBC Sport to deliver content to other platforms and programmes.
• We want BBC Sport’s output to reflect and understand the audiences we serve - for example, the different geographical regions of the UK and the experience of people from underrepresented groups (eg people from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds, people with lived experience of disability, individuals within the LGBTQ+ community and those from lower socio economic groups). We are therefore actively seeking individuals with skills or experience that can help contribute towards ensuring we maximise the diversity of our coverage and content.

*This is NOT an entry-level role, so please pay attention to the job specification

Main Responsibilities

‚ Taking a leadership role on the sports you cover across the BBC Sport department – on the editorial agenda, being an expert voice and building relationships
‚ Working collaboratively with a team of BBC Sport journalists in producing sports news stories based around your content strategy, largely for the BBC Sport website, app and social media platforms
‚ Breaking quick, accurate, news stories under pressure and to a high editorial standard, demonstrating robust, well-sourced journalism
‚ Communicating with Digital News Editors to make sure BBC Sport is on top of the news agenda every day and driving ideas for our news coverage on the day and beyond
‚ You will also be expected to have existing contacts within the sport and develop more contacts over time to deliver consistent news content
‚ Attending media events, interview opportunities and some live sport to gather material for output, produce digital content and build relationships
‚ Writing reports, live text entries, follow-up articles, and in-depth, insightful feature articles
‚ Working collaboratively with BBC colleagues in radio, TV, gathering and regional teams to source and produce news stories
‚ Suggesting creative content ideas to News Editors for on the day commissions reacting to the day’s news agenda or big talking points to inform and entertain our audience
‚ Being receptive to feedback and good at building positive working relationships with peers
‚ This is not a shift-based role. This role is on a variable shift pattern which means it responds to unpredictable output or editorial needs – driven by stories and breaking news

Are you the right Candidate?

We would love to hear from you if you have experience in some or all of the following:

‚ A passion and excitement for the sports news agenda; breaking news, debate and discussion, audience talking points and holding athletes and sporting bodies to account
‚ The commitment to drive the news agenda in your sports across platforms with proven editorial judgement and experience of editorial compliance
‚ The ability to write quickly, accurately and succinctly for a digital audience, including a good understanding of how to optimise storytelling for mobile phones
‚ Sound editorial judgement and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure
‚ Engaged with social media, with an understanding of what sports fans are talking about, what they want to read, and how you might produce social media video content for BBC Sport
‚ Mindset is vital: we want resilience, knowledge, enthusiasm, ideas and creativity coupled with good communication and organisational skills
‚ Able to build and maintain effective working relationships with a range of people, especially external contacts, representing the BBC professionally at all times
‚ Demonstrate a commitment to improving diversity in the BBC and understand how individual differences can benefit the workplace and output

If you have any questions regarding this role please contact Kate Kopczyk for more info. If you have any questions about the interview or application process please refer to Gateway where there is a wealth of resources and videos to help you.

About the BBC

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.