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Is the criticism of Naomi Schiff justified?

Is the criticism of Naomi Schiff justified?

17-06-2022 18:30
10

Oli Lewis

Editor

Recently, Sky Sports pundit Naomi Schiff has received some criticism from the twitter-sphere about whether or not the presenter is qualified to speak on the highest level of motorsport. Opinions quickly gathered traction, which resulted in varied replies and responses including one in defence for Schiff from the 7-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton.

Schiff by far found the most success in her career was in closed-wheel racing. Highlights include a championship win, which included 7 wins and 7 poles in 10 races in the 2014 Clip Cup China, as well as a second in class at 2018 in the 24hrs of Nurburgring in 2018, which saw her as well as the all-female team pilot their KTM X-Bow GT4 to a podium. While not an extensive resume, it's still more than most have achieved in their life and shows a more than adequate knowledge of racing.

While doubters will be quick to point out the results in the 2019 W-Series which saw the Rwandan-Belgian finish in 16th across the season. Which although is far from being successful. It doesn't tell the whole story, open-wheeled racing can be vastly different from the closed-wheel racing Schiff had been participating in years prior, as well as the qualifying process for the W-Series meaning she was deemed as being in the top 18 of the 55 that wanted to take part in the first W-Series season.

Comparision to other Sky pundits

While this is to not take away from any of the other pundits at Sky, they are all brilliant workers and add their own importance to the broadcast. She is far from the least qualified racer on the team. Ted Kravitz, David Croft, and Simon Lazenby all are integral parts of the broadcast, yet have no professional racing experience. Once again it can be pointed out, that both Kravitz and Croft received journalism training before moving to the F1 and Sky Sports, which do mean they are not without qualification. Meanwhile, Lazenby started off at Sky working as a runner before passing a screen test in 2002. Meaning that all of them had to start somewhere with TV Journalism, and some even when straight into the deep end. Why could Naomi not be the same, and reach similar levels of success?, it is without a doubt she is well media trained and would have received adequate training from Sky in order to help lead the F1 Broadcasts. 

This all shows that Schiff is a lot more than the "diversity hire", that some people try to make her out to be, and while she is relatively new in comparison to her colleagues they all had to start somewhere, and in my opinion, so far Schiff has proven to be a class addition to the Sky Team and has rightfully proven to have earned her spot on the show.