Deadline: September 15, 2026
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is hiring an Africa Correspondent. The Africa Correspondent will provide specialist coverage and analysis of news topics and events by gathering and reporting accurate, impartial stories across all BBC platforms, with a strong focus on digital output and radio.
You will cover major national stories, delivering engaging angles and unique insights that offer audiences a broader perspective—whether writing a lead news story as with filing for live pages, filing a digital VT summing up the story as needed, or crafting compelling end-of-day reads featuring authentic voices. You will regularly file to BBC Online, as well as making content for radio, contributing to podcasts and offering lives and packages for television.
You will also be expected to file digital video on a regular basis, offering bespoke content in both short form and long form, including field reports and digital video explainers. You’ll have the vision to experiment with digital video formats. You will analyse key developments at short notice, deploy to major breaking stories across South Africa and the wider region, and produce dynamic content for multiple platforms.
Responsibilities
- Uphold BBC Editorial Standards: Meet the highest journalistic standards, adhere to BBC Editorial Guidelines, and seek advice from Editorial Policy when necessary.
- Deliver Specialist Coverage: Provide in-depth analysis and reporting across diverse subject areas, ensuring fast, accurate, fair, and engaging journalism to deadline.
- Generate Original Stories: Demonstrate a strong track record of creating fresh ideas and compelling stories around national and global news agendas.
- Show Cultural & Geopolitical Insight: Understand key social and policy issues shaping African culture and explain the continent’s role in global geopolitics.
- Produce Multi-Platform Content: Deliver impactful text, video, social, radio and TV content, with the ability to go live on TV and radio and contribute to podcasts.
- Engage Diverse Audiences: Actively develop strategies to reach younger and female audiences while ensuring BBC output reflects diversity and audience needs.
- Lead on Digital Innovation: Be an authority on best practices for digital and social content, stay ahead of trends, and test new initiatives to enhance engagement.
Benefits
You will benefit from:
- Fair pay and flexible benefits specific to your location and contract type.
- Excellent career and professional development.
- Support in your working life.
- A values-based organisation where the way they do things is important as what they do.
Eligibility
- Extensive Journalism Experience in South Africa: able to demonstrate recent experience covering South Africa’s culture, politics, geopolitics, and history – for global news and current affairs media.
- Strong Editorial Judgment and Writing Skills: Proven ability to write quickly, clearly, and engagingly in English, with experience sub-editing and adapting scripts for multiple platforms.
- Proven record of producing original journalism, for the public good.
- Digital and Social Media Expertise: Successful track record in digital production environments, including social media engagement, interactivity, and digital video optimization.
- Multi-Platform Reporting Capability: Skilled in delivering authoritative reports across radio, online, and social platforms, with the ability to go live on radio and TV during breaking news events.
- Audience-Centric Content Creation: Clear understanding of target audience needs and the ability to produce imaginative, compelling content in text, video, social, and audio formats.
- Ability to package for TV bulletins on major stories.
- You will be required to work throughout Africa and must also be willing to be involved in major BBC news deployments at short notice in other parts of the globe including to hostile environments.
Application
Application Requirements:
- CV
- Complete application questions as well as providing links to three examples of your work in English:
- A text or broadcast report covering a breaking news story
- An example of an original journalism story (in text, broadcast or digital video form)
- An example of geopolitical analysis in text/digital/radio format
For more information, visit BBC Job.
