Journalist

Package Description

Band: C

Contract: 1 x Permanent Part Time; 21 hours per week

Location: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, office-based

Job Reference: 19574

Salary: Up to £33,000 pro rata depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

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 21-hour working week for work-life balance and 16 days annual leave (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 3 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.

Job Introduction

Are you a team player looking to join a local news team in the BBC where your skillset will be acknowledged and nurtured? Do you want to move to a new way of working within an ambitious broadcasting station?

This is a great opportunity to join an ambitious team here at Radio Newcastle. If you love telling local stories that matter to the people that live here in the North East, we want to hear from you.

We’re looking for an experienced, versatile journalist to become our weekend newsreader on the team here at BBC Radio Newcastle. You’ll need to be hands-on and have a passion for storytelling, with experience in breaking news, a great news reading voice, and production skills. Digital journalism skills are also considered desirable.

You’ll need to be a motivated, multi-skilled journalist to help shape our content, focusing on bringing to life the stories that matter to our audience.

We want a driven and passionate person who is keen to reach new audiences through our various platforms. You’ll ideally know what audiences expect from different platforms and how to turn around a story to meet a tight deadline.

The role requires someone who will be keen to do more than just look for press releases – we want original and inclusive ideas that help reflect the diverse audience of Newcastle.

Please send a bulletin reading demo, no longer than three minutes in duration to sam.thomson@bbc.co.uk when you apply.

Main Responsibilities

As a Journalist, some of your responsibilities will include the following:

• Compiling and presenting our hourly weekend news bulletins, with some weekday working.
• You will have experience of responding to breaking news with the ability to summarise complex issues calmly and clearly under significant time pressure. You may be deployed to report on stories, so live production experience is critical.
• You will come up with original story ideas, guests, and creative treatments and carry out background research.
• Our producers work with colleagues across BBC News and other parts of the corporation. We expect high-quality writing skills and the highest standards of accuracy, impartiality, and fair dealing in accordance with the BBC's Editorial values.
• Our audience uses us 7 days a week; our weekend breakfast and mid-morning content is a crucial aspect of our output – so expect early starts.

Are you the right candidate?

Have you got examples of highly creative storytelling? We need people who match our ambition for the station. The role is demanding, and we set high standards. But we also want to have fun. If you’re a journalist with plenty of ideas for creative storytelling, then we want to hear from you.

Are you available to work weekends?

We are looking for someone to work predominantly as part of our weekend line-up, with an extra weekday shift either immediately before or after the weekend.

Do you have a strong broadcast voice?

You will work on a wide range of stories with the audience at the heart of it. You must be skilled in researching, briefing, and scripting around an interview, as well as chatting to a presenter and engaging with our listeners.

Can you deliver creative treatments on air?

If so, we want to hear from you.

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.

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.