Senior Journalist Team Manager

BBC Afrique is part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the world’s largest public broadcaster. In Africa, the BBC reaches a weekly audience of more than 90 million people on Radio, TV, Digital, Mobile and Social Media. We currently broadcast to Africa in English, Hausa, French, Somali, Swahili, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kiswahili and Arabic.

BBC Afrique produces a wide range of radio and digital content with an emphasis on regional and international current affairs. Our coverage includes breaking news, sports, arts, health, business and features. We challenge decision makers to discuss the issues that affect the daily lives of Africans.

BBC Afrique is recruiting a Senior Journalist Team Manager to lead radio output. You need to demonstrate strong editorial judgment, experience supporting and managing teams, creative ideas to innovate across radio and digital audio, and a desire to report the news in a fair and unbiased way for a Francophone African audience.
Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

This role requires French as first or equivalent language and the ability to write engagingly and edit to a high standard, including rewriting and restructuring stories where necessary
This role requires the ability to communicate effectively in English (written and spoken) and translate pieces from English to French and vice versa
Supervise, support and motivate a team of journalists to produce lively, interesting and high-quality content relevant to Francophone African audiences
Discover 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
Maintain a high level of journalistic, linguistic and production standards in the output, giving proper editorial consideration to output material and taking decisions on suitability, quality and emergency changes
Ensure material is fact-checked, legally clear and compliant with BBC editorial policy, including flagging up issues and discussing them with service editor or other member of editorial hierarchy
Contribute to, and chair as needed, the bureau editorial meetings, shaping the day’s output and responding to breaking and developing stories
Support planning efforts to commission and integrate Afrique output across platforms
Support digital growth through effective application of analytics and best practices
Represent the Dakar bureau in wider BBC editorial meetings as required.
Liaise proactively and collaborate effectively with colleagues across the BBC to enable the efficient production and sharing of content
Line-manage staff members including providing regular feedback and performance appraisals. Review and amend rota as needed to meet output needs
Assist as required in the recruitment and selection of staff
Deputise for the Editor as required
Please note this role requires night and weekend work. This role may also require travel, sometimes at short notice and potentially to areas which are hostile environments

Knowledge, Skills, Training & Experience

Essential

A high standard of editorial judgment, writing ability and production skills based on substantial broadcast journalism experience.
Maximises opportunities offered by existing and emerging technologies to their fullest extent.
Ability to work effectively as a member of more than one team. Resolving conflicts as necessary.
Ability to manage resources, staff, technical facilities and budgets, in order to make challenging broadcasting in the most cost effective manner.
Demonstrates a commitment to improving diversity in the BBC and understands how individual differences can benefit the BBC.
Prioritises and plans activities taking into account all the relevant issues and factors such as deadlines, staffing and resources.
Ability to write creatively in an engaging manner, adapt, produce and translate with accuracy, clarity and style appropriate to differing audiences and forms of media suitable for multimedia output.
The flexibility and adaptability to sustain performance, particularly under pressure to meet deadlines and changing priorities and circumstances.
An understanding of health and safety procedures and how they apply to broadcasting.

Job Impact
Decision making Significant level of responsibility. Uses initiative but seeks guidance where necessary. Typically manages a small team of Journalists (some of which may be Senior Journalists) and/or other more junior roles, in most cases up to 20 people. Scope A senior journalist covering a wide range of journalism activity, with significant experience and responsibility for programme/content creation. In addition, this role has formal managerial responsibility.