Senior Journalist Reporter

Job Introduction
BBC Radio Stoke is an ambitious radio station that puts ‘real people’ at the centre of everything it does. It knows and loves its audience, serving a TSA of more than 700,000 people across Stoke, Staffordshire and Cheshire.

This is a rare opportunity for a creative and digital-savvy journalist to join a motivated team on a continuing basis.

Main Responsibilities
You will report on local politics across Staffordshire creating content that is engaging, impactful and relevant to our audiences.

You will be expected to build, maintain and develop relationships with MPs, councillors and voters to ensure fair and impartial coverage of local issues.

Real people are at the heart of what we do at BBC Stoke so you will also develop your own contacts which will allow you to fix guests and find case studies quickly and efficiently.

You will be able to localise national issues and find ways to make Radio Stoke’s political coverage relevant to the area and its listeners - especially those in underserved communities.

You will be able to call authority to account fairly and be able to voice the concerns of Radio Stoke listeners and readers on air and for our online content and social media.

You will advise programme makers and presenters on political stories and be able to turn your original content into dynamic material for BBC Stoke & Staffordshire’s online presence.

You will also collaborate on stories with other Political Reporters including from neighbouring Cheshire and Shropshire and Politics Midlands.

You’ll know the local political scene well and will have strong editorial skills which will enable you to identify and pursue local issues and develop original stories.

We’re looking for someone with significant previous experience in radio journalism but who can adapt to reporting for television and writing for BBC online content.

You’ll have strong organisation and communication skills with the ability to adapt your presentation style to different programmes - such as our Breakfast show where stories are driven by case-studies more than by councillors, experts or MPs.

Ideally, you will be someone who loves original journalism and is excited by local politics.

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 in the document attached below.

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.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here

Package Description
Band: D

Contract: Fixed Term Full Time (7 Months)

Location: Stoke on Trent
- **_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 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days holiday with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.

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