Sean Carberry of National Defense Magazine On The Five Things You Need To Create A Successful Career As A Journalist

First and most obvious will always be to learn to write and never stop learning and improving. You always have time to learn subject matter, but if you can’t write well, you’re not going to get far. I’ve worked with journalists of all experience levels, and nothing drives an editor crazier than having to do remedial writing work. Most news organizations have prospective hires complete a writing test. I’ve seen candidates with great resumes get knocked out of contention because of poor performance on a writing test.

As a part of our series about “Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Journalist”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Carberry.

Sean Carberry is an award-winning journalist, writer, editor, and foreign policy and national security expert with more than 20 years of experience in media and government. He was NPR’s last Kabul-based correspondent in 2012–214. He is…