Assistant Digital Editor - BBC Verify

Job Reference: 23872

Band: E

Salary: £65,000 to £75,000 plus London Weighting, depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Contract type: Continuing

Location: London Broadcasting House

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.

If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the reasonable.adjustments@bbc.co.uk. For any general queries, please contact: bbchr@bbc.co.uk.

Job Introduction

BBC Verify was established almost two years ago and brings together the BBC’s best analysts, fact-checkers, data specialists and designers from across domestic and global teams with expertise in data journalism, disinformation, and the latest open-source journalism and verification techniques. We are now launching a new presence on the BBC News website: a live page showcasing the team's work. This accessible, real-time display of BBC Verify’s activity will highlight the best of our content, with transparency at its core. The live page will not only promote our best material but also demonstrate to the audience how we know what we know.

We are looking for a razor-sharp Assistant Editor who can play a leading role at the heart of our growing digital BBC Verify team. It’s a fantastic opportunity to help shape the future of what digital and live coverage looks like at BBC Verify and to combine compelling reporting with text, video, images and graphics. They will be expected to take charge of BBC Verify’s digital coverage and live page, running on-the-day updates to news stories and planned events, in text and video, ensuring the content is rich, accessible and up to the minute. You’ll be a key member of the BBC Verify management team and will be expected to take on a wide range of editorial responsibilities.

Main Responsibilities

This Assistant Digital Editor role is within the BBC Verify live team, which brings its reporting into a real-time, live format (often known elsewhere as a “live blog”) to BBC audiences across the world. As Assistant Digital Editor you will play a key role in the success of the BBC Verify live page and drive our digital content. This includes managing staff, directing coverage, working with the BBC Verify, Digital News and Digital Curation teams, commissioning content from BBC Verify and a range of other duties.

We are looking for someone who has a deep understanding of the changing needs of digital audiences and significant experience of open source journalism including verification, disinformation and fact-checking. You’ll use that knowledge to drive and shape BBC Verify’s digital coverage. We need an editor who can move swiftly and authoritatively in breaking news situations and be extremely hands-on where necessary. You should also be able to demonstrate experience producing live pages. We also need someone who can build good, collaborative relationships and can get the best out of a large team often working on several different stories at once. The new Assistant Editor will work with the Senior News Editor and alongside other editors to help manage and develop team members, with some line management responsibility. You will also be expected to regularly edit the BBC Verify live page, to assist in managing planned coverage and projects, as well as BBC newsletters.

Are you the Right Candidate?

The Ideal Candidate Must Have:

• Excellent editorial judgement with significant experience editing live pages and digital stories in a live and fast-paced newsroom
• Proven knowledge of open source tools and forensic techniques
• Experience of managing and motivating a team under high pressure
• Extensive experience commissioning distinctive digital storytelling, which includes newsletters and video content.
• Deep understanding of how to use audience and search data to improve digital storytelling, reach new audiences and broaden coverage

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.

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.