Dedication matters more than degrees in motorsport journalism

Or how to stop worrying and start writing

Hello, aspiring motorsport journalists! Are you worried that you don't have a shot at doing what you love without a journalism degree?

Let me give you some hope: more than anything, you just need to be dedicated to improving your writing craft.

When I got my first job, it was not because I had — or was pursuing — a degree in journalism. It was because I was dedicated to writing on my own blog and sharing pieces that would nevertheless make the rounds on social media and generate interest. From that alone, I earned two different paying gigs: One at Jalopnik, and one with Red Bull.

I was in university at the time, so theoretically, the only degree I'd completed was my high school degree. My focus in school was English literature and creative writing, which I pursued through to a graduate level. That's a decent amount of education, sure, but at no point have I ever applied to a job in the motorsport world to be told that I should have had a different degree.

That's because I had a backlog of published work to point to, so the folks hiring me had actual evidence that I, at the very least, understood how to write and report. They could see I was dedicated to what I was doing, and that was more than enough.

So, you don't need a degree in journalism, but you should be practicing a slew of different skills to show your worth in the field. So let's dig in.

A lack of a journalism degree isn't a free pass to do less

In fact, it means you should be putting in some extra work on the side.

If you want to do good, interesting work, then you should be constantly striving to improve. That means lots of research, writing, and asking questions on the side.

More than anything else, you need to be digging into journalistic ethics, laws, and practices; while I do think there should be flexibility in the way you approach your work, you also need to be fluent in the concepts that will allow you to continue doing that work in the future. Put simply, you should know how to not get sued. You should know what constitutes a conflict of interest. You should know the difference between ‘on the record,’ ‘off the record,’ and ‘on background.’ You should know how to professionally handle a request for correction, how to update a story with new information, how to seek out sources, how to forge relationships.

You don't have to pursue a journalism degree to learn those things. You can do that for free, on your own time. You can spend a few hundred bucks on a crash course. You can buy any one of the hundreds of books out there that break down what you need to know. But you have to do it if you want to become a reliable source of information. These are foundational skills upon which you can flourish as a writer.

Write creatively, for fun

I also recommend writing as much as humanly possible. About everything. Anything. Particularly if you don't come from any kind of writing background.

I'm not kidding on this one. Get a cheap notebook and steal a pen from your local car repair shop (these are my literal exact supplies right now) and make a point of handwriting about something every day that you find creatively nourishing.

By ‘creatively nourishing,’ I mean ‘things you feel inspired to write about.’ Some mornings while I'm having my coffee, I'll look out the window and describe what I see: Fragile rays of sunlight tickling the newly budded leaves on the trees; a fawn with the zoomies and all his siblings who couldn't care less about the way he's leaping through a meadow; a slim gray lizard doing push-ups as he ponders his next move. If I'm in public, I'll jot down snippets of conversation, or describe a particularly fascinating person and give them a backstory. I'll dream up all the tangled paths of life that brought this shawled woman to this particular Starbucks at this particular time of day. I'll note the cadence of a person's voice, or make note of a turn-of-phrase they just used.

Granted, these are creative writing exercises, not journalistic exercises, but I would like to remind you all that journalism doesn't have to be boring. It can be touching, heart-wrenching, beautiful, transcendent. You don't hone those skills by writing about the daily news.

If you're totally opposed to the idea of getting a little flowery about your surroundings, then there are plenty of other writing exercises to do. If you come across an article with a compelling premise but a real dud of an opening paragraph, write your own intro. If there's a piece of news that no one is talking about, try reporting on it yourself. Hell, I also find it really instructive to revisit old pieces I've published and rework them with all of the new skills I've learned since that specific story went live.

Spend five minutes a day on this, at least. I love handwriting for a half hour, and I'll carve out that time for myself because I've really come to appreciate the ways it helps me improve my craft.

Find a damn good editor

I don't care how good you think you are as a writer: You can benefit from a good editor.

A good editor can help you refine your idea in its earliest stages, so that you approach a piece with a clearer sense of direction. That'll save you a whole lot of time (and a whole lot of mental agony) during the writing and rewriting stage. Editors can also help you make early connections to interview sources, draft emails for interview requests, brainstorm thoughtful questions, and more.

A good editor can transform a good piece of work into a great one. Think of your first draft being your first-ever attempt at drawing a rabbit. You might draw something that mostly passes as a rabbit. Then, think of your editor as the art teacher, or the online tutorial, that points out the most important features of a rabbit, then tells you how to draw them. That redrafted rabbit will inevitably look a lot better, and you'll be able to carry away some tips you can use when approaching your next rabbit drawing.

A good editor can ask questions you didn't think to investigate. We're all human beings, with our own perceptions, trains of thought, and biases, and when we're working on something, we tend to get so close to the subject matter that we can overlook certain counter arguments or examples. Your editor should be able to help you weave in those forgotten strands of thought in order to strengthen your argument.

A good editor will help you feel confident in the integrity of the work you publish. Full stop.

Notice here that I said ‘good’ editor. I have worked with some very good ones in my career. I have also worked with some very bad ones. A good editor should be someone who understands your general focus, who works with you instead of prescribing to you, who approaches your questions with patience, and who can articulate why they are asking you to do something.

Bad editors can still be valuable in helping you learn what you don't want from a co-creator, but be wary of any advice (or demands) that make you uncomfortable or feel irrelevant. I've had editors who have demanded I add in irrelevant statistics, and because I was 20 and didn't know any better, I did what I was told. And guess what? The comments all pointed out how irrelevant those statistics were. I've also had editors who, when presented with my idea for a story, have responded, “I don't know enough about that topic, so how about you write a story about this thing that I personally find interesting but that you know nothing about?” Those are big red flags, so respond accordingly.

Most editors are going to fall somewhere on the “I don't get paid enough to deal with this shit” spectrum, unfortunately. They'll likely be overwhelmed and disengaged, trying to manage a staff of multiple people who are all being asked to write 10 stories a day. So if you find a good one out there, hold onto ‘em.

Would I have benefitted from a journalism degree?

With all that being said, I do want to address one last thing: Do I feel I would have benefitted from a journalism degree?

Yes and no.

Yes, I do think I would have gotten my foot in the door more easily if I had the “I'm a student of journalism at [Insert University Here]” in certain instances, at least as far as a formal internship went. I would have had a classroom setting in which to learn about laws and ethics, and I would have had professors who could have served as a nurturing editor. All of that would have undoubtedly helped me, since those were all things I needed to do later, on my own time.

Would I go back and do things differently? Absolutely not.

At the end of the day, the reason I like my job is because I like telling stories. My goal in life is to write tons of published novels and narrative nonfiction books. I like developing characters and probing into plot lines and piecing together how A ties into B. In college, I studied narrative form, style, and literary convention. When I got my first jobs in journalism, those qualities helped me stand out from my peers. They had the education on how laws worked; I had the education on how to write something moving and beautiful.

Would I have benefitted from a journalism degree? Of course. But I also would have evolved into a much different writer, and I wouldn't change my style for the world. At the same time, I'd also argue that a lot of my colleagues in the overall motorsport journalism space could have benefitted from studying creative writing and literature.

But this is what I mean when I say that dedication matters more than anything else. I didn't necessarily need a journalism degree because when this career path became a possibility, I made sure I spent my time learning what I didn't know. I did that because I wanted to be good at my job. Because I was dedicated to it. So don't worry about degrees so damn much, and just start writing and researching instead.