Senior Journalist (On the Day) at BBC Tanzania

JOB DETAILS

JOB BAND: D

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full-time

DEPARTMENT: BBC World Service

LOCATION: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Local terms and conditions

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

BBC Swahili is one of the BBC World Service's biggest and fastest growing language services, reaching millions of Swahili speakers across East Africa and beyond. Operating across radio, TV and digital platforms, the service provides independent, impartial journalism to audiences whose access to free and trusted news is often limited by political pressure, media restrictions and disinformation.

BBC Swahili is transforming into a story-led model built around two complementary editorial streams: On the Day and On Demand.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

The Senior Journalist, On the Day, is the on-shift editorial lead: the person who makes the calls, drives the commissioning, holds the output together and sets the pace and standards for the digital, radio and TV teams around them. The role demands strong news instincts, a clear digital-first editorial mindset, and the confidence to lead journalists and presenters through a fast-moving shift across multiple platforms 7 days a week.

The BBC Swahili On the Day stream serves a large and loyal radio and TV audience alongside a growing digital following. A key part of this role is helping to connect those audiences using radio and TV output to drive listeners and viewers towards BBC Swahili’s digital platforms, and ensuring digital content is produced with the habits and needs of that broader audience in mind.

The postholder works across morning, afternoon or night shifts, deputising for the Assistant Editor, On the Day as required.

Your Key Responsibilities And Impact

• Drive a digital-first commissioning approach across the shift, ensuring every story is planned and produced for digital publication from the outset, with relevant content produced for TV and radio as much as possible.
• Oversee continuous digital publishing on the BBC Swahili website, commissioning and editing articles, video embeds, image galleries and social media posts to maintain a regular publishing rhythm that keeps audiences returning throughout the day.
• Commission and edit short-form video and social media content for TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook and YouTube Shorts, ensuring assets are created from daily news stories as a standard part of the production workflow.
• Use audience analytics tools to monitor digital performance during and after each shift, identifying what is resonating with audiences and adjusting commissioning and publishing decisions accordingly.
• Supervise the daily production of BBC Swahili’s visualized and linear radio output, ensuring the live programme is produced and broadcast to a high standard and is simultaneously suitable for streaming on YouTube.
• Commission and oversee BBC Swahili’s TV output during the shift, working with the TV production team to ensure packages, headlines and programme segments are delivered on time and to standard.
• Manage the practical workflow of the shift, assigning tasks, monitoring progress against deadlines and redistributing resource as the news agenda changes. Contribute to the training and development of junior journalists, providing constructive in-shift coaching on digital production, writing, video and cross-platform working.
  

Essential Criteria

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Demonstrable experience of leading digital-first news output, with a clear understanding of what drives engagement, traffic and audience growth on digital platforms.
• Hands-on experience of commissioning and editing content for multiple digital platforms simultaneously, including news website, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook and YouTube Shorts.
• Strong working knowledge of audience analytics tools and the ability to act on performance data in real time during a shift.
• Clear understanding of what makes content perform on each platform: optimising for search on the website, maximising watch time on YouTube, driving shares on Facebook, and producing high-retention vertical video for TikTok and Reels.
• Experience of producing or supervising visualised radio or TV output, with a clear understanding of how to make broadcast content work simultaneously for audio and on-screen audiences.
• Understanding of TV news production workflows, including the ability to work with producers, camera operators and presenters to deliver packages and programmes to tight deadlines.
• Excellent scripting, writing and sub-editing skills in Swahili and English.
  

Disclaimer

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Recruitment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

For any general queries, please contact: [email protected]

We are unable to accept applications via CV and only applications made online will be considered. Please click on the APPLY NOW button to proceed with your application.