Assistant Editor, Forensics, Persian Channel

at  BBC

JOB INTRODUCTION

The BBC World Service has been undergoing a transformation to ensure that the best World Service content travels further and makes greater impact. As such we have refocused our strategy to build reach and engagement on owned and operated platforms, including TV, and on digital. We have also been changing the way we operate.
World Service Languages Channels brings together our TV and streaming offers. At the core of this are BBC Arabic and BBC Persian, which together have a weekly audience of over 42 million, some of the largest BBC global audiences.
As part of our commitment to clarity and truth, and in alignment with the missions of BBC News and BBC World Service, we aim to enhance transparency in our storytelling . Our goal is to establish BBC Arabic and BBC Persian as world leaders in transparent journalism. Therefore, we have built on the strong verification skills in both channels and created specialist teams in OSINT skills to expand and enhance our capabilities. The teams are embedded within the channels, helping to cultivate these abilities more broadly. The focus is on responding to breaking stories within the first 48 hours and contributing to more in-depth work when commissioned with other teams. The roles have involved regular live presentations and writing for digital requiring first-class proficiency in both English and Persian for Persian output.
The successful candidate will provide quick turnaround verification on regional stories using standardised BBC systems and tools, fact-check during breaking news and major events, and play a key part in the daily output of BBC Persian and BBC Arabic.
Your primary role will be to present on WSL Channels, and as a forensic expert work closely with colleagues in BBC Verify and BBC WSL Longform, operating jointly and coordinating daily. You will regularly reversion rest of the world content from BBC Verify and will contribute to BBC Verify’s coverage of Iran and the Arab world.
You will also contribute to planned weekly programming on BBC Persian and BBC Arabic, lifting the curtain on BBC investigative and forensics work from across BBC World Service and BBC News.
We are looking for an experienced and inspiring Assistant Editor to lead our transparency journalism.
The successful candidate will help shape and implement our strategy for making our forensics journalism more impactful and will lead on promoting best practices of transparency journalism across Languages Channels.

ARE YOU THE RIGHT CANDIDATE?

We are looking for someone who has:

• Fluency in written and spoken Persian language and English and deep knowledge of Persian-speaking media landscape
• Strong leadership skills with a proven ability to inspire, motivate, and guide a diverse team towards achieving high standards of performance and innovation. This includes fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment, providing clear direction, and supporting professional development to ensure the team remains engaged and productive
• Strong, demonstrable track record of commissioning and producing/leading original stories that have created impact across multiple Language Services and other BBC outlets
• Proven track record of using and leading the use of OSINT and other forensic tools and techniques and data-driven research to produce news-making content
• Strong evidence of managing an editorial team
• Substantial experience of editorial innovation and proven editorial judgement
• Experience of developing innovative solutions to storytelling challenges - such as heavy data stories, untold stories and difficult analysis - to aid audience understanding
• Understanding demographic challenges and potential solutions to deliver key content to audiences of need
• Demonstrable experience in managing, directing and motivating staff - including remotely - in challenging and high pressured environments
• Thorough understanding of audience needs and TV and digital media landscape
• Deep understanding of data analytics tools and search optimisation
• Strong negotiation and stakeholder management skills

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

DISCLAIMER

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

• To lead and guide our journalists and reporters to produce impactful, engaging, inspiring investigative content based on robust research
• To provide rigorous supervision to ensure all of our of journalism is produced in line with BBC editorial, legal, high risk and information security guidelines
• To set up rigorous production workflows and templates, from data mining and verification to commissioning of visual assets and creating impact on social media
• To inspire and champion journalists and reporters in creating explainers that shed light on transparency journalism and how we do what we do
• To exploit recent technical innovations and available BBC resources and studios to make our visual storytelling more appealing to the younger underserved audience
• To establish an efficient channel of pitching and commissioning stories between the forensics unit and other Persian and Arabic teams
• To lead risk management and compliance, such as exposure of team members to traumatizing content and high risk deployments, and collaborate with relevant BBC teams to provide mitigations
• To help other Channels editors skill up their teams in areas of forensics and transparency journalism
• To utilize the full potential of the WSL Output department to have agile transfer of staff and skills for editorial projects and in response to major news events
• To collaborate with WSL Disinformation, BBC Verify and other teams with similar objectives
• To liaise with Newsgathering and Deployment Editors to make sure deployments and commissioning are carried out in the most organized and cost-effective way, identifying synergies, avoiding duplication
• To liaise with Planning and Prospects Editor to make sure our content is shared most efficiently across all 42 languages and its impact is amplified as much as possible
• To champion and optimize the forensics team’s output with relevant service editors, and be able to work collaboratively with other teams across BBC News
• To ensure all content reflects our diverse audiences
• To support and deputize, when necessary, the Senior News Editor across a range of editorial and management responsibilities
• To attend (and chair when necessary) daily, weekly and monthly meetings
• To champion sustainability in content production