Senior Political Journalist London, England
Job description
Job Title
Senior Political Journalist
Salary
£36,700 - £41,700 per annum
Location
Remote first with an office available in Central London and regular team meetings in the office
Reporting to
Politics Editor
Employment Type
Permanent. We are happy to talk about flexible working.
Application Closing Date
10am on Monday 13 March 2023
Introduction to the role
Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact checking organisation, is recruiting a senior political journalist. This is an exciting opportunity to join our brand-new political fact checking team, at a crucial time for UK politics as we prepare for the next general election.
This is a unique chance to do ground-breaking work when it couldn’t matter more. You’ll research and write fact checks, explainers and features across a wide range of political and policy topics, and will learn how to identify and expose patterns in misinformation. You’ll develop new skills, have your work seen by millions and get to see the work you do have a measurable impact in making public debate more trustworthy.
If you are interested in applying but not sure you have all the skills, please do apply. We are open both to supporting learning on the job and to rearranging tasks within the team to suit the skillsets of the best applicant.
Job Definition
Your job is to keep politicians and other political actors in the UK honest. You’ll be responsible for spotting, exposing and tackling misleading claims, writing a number of fact checks each week, and will also be expected to write features and other content as required.
We’re ideally looking for candidates with significant political journalism experience, but will consider candidates from other backgrounds and prior fact checking experience isn’t necessary. Pre-existing knowledge of one or more policy areas would be an advantage.
You will need to be able to quickly master and explain tricky, nuanced topics in clear, concise and impartial copy - and must have an eye for a story.
Key tasks and outcomes
- Regularly monitor media organisations, social media, public figures and politicians for political misinformation
- Pitch fact checks and features based on a good understanding of the political and policy landscape and Full Fact’s aims
- Produce accurate, engaging and publication-ready copy to tight deadlines
- Working with colleagues, hit weekly and monthly publication targets
- Develop contacts, subject knowledge and expertise across the political and policy landscape
- Work with other teams within Full Fact, such as policy and communications, to ensure we have a good overview of political misinformation
- Help Full Fact’s work on ‘fact checking for change’, ensuring that as well as publishing fact checks we identify and act upon solvable problems
- Help live fact check PMQs and other big political events
What we are looking for from you
- Strong research and writing skills - we’re ideally looking for someone with significant political journalism experience
- Political impartiality and sensitivity (please see the rules on our website https://fullfact.org/about/jobs/)
- Good understanding of public debate in the UK and sensitivity to the political context Full Fact works in
- Demonstrable knowledge of UK politics and/or key policy topics, with experience working in political journalism preferred
- An ability to understand and master new topics rapidly
- Ability to build on pre-existing political and policy knowledge, for example by developing contacts
- Understanding of digital channels, audiences and formats
- An understanding of what it takes to meet the highest standards of accuracy and balance
- Communication skills, and a track record of communicating with a non-specialist audience in any format
- An understanding of Full Fact’s style and principles
- Ideally experience of identifying and correcting misleading claims in public debate
- Ideally experience using the Freedom of Information Act
What we offer
- Salary of £36,700-£41,700 per annum, depending on experience
- Workplace Pension
- Generous holidays
- 25 days holiday plus bank holidays.
- In addition, we close the office and give additional days off for a period between Christmas and New Year.
- Day off for moving home.
- Comfortable, centrally located London office with good transport links.
- Employee Assistance Programme.
Our core working hours are 9am to 5pm, but we are considering having one member of the team start earlier on a rota basis in future, so if you were open to working occasional 7am to 3pm shifts that would be desirable.
How to apply
Upload your CV and cover letter using the link below by 10am on Monday 13 March 2023.
We prefer to sift applications anonymously. Please use your initials rather than your name and leave identifying details such as email addresses off your CV and covering letter.
Please note that to keep our recruitment process open and fair, we will not negotiate salaries outside the advertised range.
Before applying, please read the requirements we place on staff to protect Full Fact’s independence and non-partisanship. https://fullfact.org/get-involved/jobs/#standards
How the application process will work
We want to see you at your best to understand your strengths and the contribution you could make at Full Fact with strong support, including for your learning and development. We also want to make sure that we use your time well during this process and don’t ask for more from you than we need to. We will make any reasonable adjustments we need to make to this process to help ensure you can perform at your best. For more information about this before applying, please contact [email protected].
The interview panel will be Steve Nowottny (Editor) and two other senior members of the Full Fact team.
The process starts off with an anonymised covering letter and CV. This will be read by at least two people to produce a shortlist for interview.
The first round interviews will be a phone (not video) interview, lasting no more than half an hour, at a time that’s convenient for you. We will record it so at least two people can review each interview to decide who we invite back for the second round. The recordings will be deleted at the end of the process.
The second round will include a structured interview and a timed task which assumes no prior knowledge. The task can be completed prior to the interview, at a time that most suits you.
The interview will be with the full panel by video and last no more than an hour. We’ll tell you everything you need to know to prepare, including anything we’d recommend reading in advance.
