Senior Journalist, BBC Great Lakes

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

• BBC Great Lakes (Gahuza) is a highly respected provider of news and information in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi in Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo and neighbouring countries. Operating across radio and other 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 Great Lakes is transforming into digital first story-led model built around two complementary editorial streams: On the Day and On Demand.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

• We are recruiting an experienced Senior Journalist to lead our news team in producing high-quality, accurate, and compelling news content that reflects the diverse voices and issues of the Great Lakes region. The Senior Journalist will play a crucial role in shaping the editorial direction of our radio broadcast and digital platforms, making calls, driving the commissioning, holding the outputs together and setting the pace and standards for the digital and radio teams around them as well as ensuring that our reporting is timely, relevant and impactful.
• This is a role for Senior Journalist who combines strong journalism instincts with genuine digital ambition; someone who can support the Assistant Editor to lead a team through a significant transformation in how BBC Great Lakes reaches and serves its audiences, while maintaining the editorial standards and audience trust that make the service matter.
• The BBC Great Lakes serves a large and loyal radio audiences alongside a growing digital following. A key part of this role is helping to connect those audiences using visualized radio and digital outputs to drive listeners and viewers towards BBC Great Lakes Website and digital platforms and ensuring digital content is produced with the habits and needs of that broader audience in mind.
• The postholder works across morning and late shifts, deputising for the Assistant Editor as required.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT:

• Oversee continuous digital publishing on the BBC Great Lakes website, commissioning and editing articles, video embeds, image galleries and social media posts to maintain a regular publishing pattern that keeps audiences returning throughout the day.
• Support the Assistant Editor to lead BBC Great Lakes transformation to a digital-first, video-led service, creating a culture of editorial ambition, personal accountability, mutual respect and continuous learning.
• In collaboration with the Assistant Editor, will develop and implement a data-led video strategy designed to drive measurable digital growth, with a focus on expanding reach among younger and female audiences.
• Commission, edit and deliver high impact original journalism, including exclusives, investigations, explainers and digital-first content.
• 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 Great Lakes 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.
• 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.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

• 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 for website, YouTube, 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 Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts and Reels.
• Experience of producing or supervising visualised radio output, with a clear understanding of how to make broadcast content work simultaneously for audio and on-screen audiences.
• Excellent scripting, writing and sub-editing skills in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi and English.