Job Introduction

BBC World Service is an international multimedia broadcaster, part of BBC News, delivering a wide range of language and regional services and working increasingly with other parts of BBC News to serve global audiences. It uses multiple platforms to reach its weekly audience of 468 million globally, including TV, digital platforms, radio, digital satellite and cable channels.

BBC News Urdu is part of the 16 services of the Asia Region and is spread across Pakistan, India and the UK. The multimedia service has a thriving online and social media presence.

It is a well-known and highly respected news service in Pakistan, providing up-to-date news and current affairs in Urdu, covering both domestic and international news stories. It is multiplatform, with a multimedia website with a focus on digital video, text, interactivity for both desktop and mobile platforms. The service aims to make international news relevant to Urdu audiences, and bring international perspectives to bear on Pakistan and global developments. Our service brings quality, impartial, original journalism with news and current affairs to Urdu audiences.

Role Responsibility

As Senior Journalist Planning, you will be responsible for supporting the Urdu service newsgathering team in India in the planning and production of content and liaising with the Indian Languages planning team to ensure collaboration and sharing of content.

You will find original stories and come up with original treatments and ways of delivering a diverse range of voices - Assign or commission stories, briefing reporters/producers/VJs and steering treatments, with an emphasis on multiplatform output and value for money.

You will maintain a high level of journalistic, linguistic and production standards in the output, giving proper editorial consideration to output material and take decisions on suitability, quality and emergency changes.

You will ensure material is fact-checked, legal and compliant with BBC editorial policy, including flagging up issues and discussing them with the service editor or other members of editorial hierarchy.

You will work with High Risk teams and India Planners to ensure the safety of reporters and all deployed teams, support digital growth and liaise proactively and collaborate effectively with colleagues in Indian languages and across the BBC to enable the efficient production and sharing of content.

You will supervise, support and motivate a team of journalists to produce lively, interesting and high-quality content relevant to audiences.

The Ideal Candidate

To be successful in this role you must have a high standard of editorial judgment, writing ability and production skills based on substantial broadcast journalism experience; and also maximise opportunities offered by existing and emerging technologies to their fullest extent.

You have the ability to work effectively as a member of more than one team, resolve conflicts as necessary, and manage resources, staff, technical facilities and budgets.

You have a passion and commitment to improving diversity in the BBC and understand how individual differences can benefit the BBC.

You are able to write creatively in an engaging manner, adapt, produce and translate with accuracy, clarity and style appropriate to different audiences and forms of media suitable for multimedia output.

You have the flexibility and adaptability to sustain performance, particularly under pressure to meet deadlines and changing priorities and circumstances.

This role requires Urdu as first or equivalent language and the ability to write engagingly and edit to a high standard, including rewriting and restructuring stories where necessary. It also requires the ability to communicate effectively in English (written and spoken) and translate pieces from English to Urdu and vice versa.

Package Description

Contract type: Continuing
Location: Delhi

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 â€“ the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities â€“ 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 (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.

The situation regarding the coronavirus outbreak is developing quickly and the BBC is keen to continue to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people across the BBC, while continuing to protect our services. To reduce the risk access to BBC buildings is limited to those essential to our broadcast output. From Wednesday 18th March until further notice all assessments and interviews will be conducted remotely. For more information go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/careers/

About the Company

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 in the document attached below.

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.

Closing Date04 October, 2022