Senior Journalist (On the Day)

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.

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 Qualifications & 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.
• Degree qualification (BA/BSc/HND).