Career Insights from a Media Professional

By: Caleb Thomason

May 15, 2022

Emma Sporleder is a graduate student at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, Oklahoma. She currently works as a media professional for the Northwestern Foundation & Alumni Association. In addition, to working full time for the Foundation, Sporleder works for the university athletic department taking pictures during the games, creating social media posts, and writing stories about the student athletes and the games. For as long as Sporleder could remember, she wanted to work in the sports media profession. Via email, I recently asked Sporleder to share her journey to becoming a media professional to help others who may be interested in pursuing a similar career path. As a mass communications major myself, I too wanted to learn more about her experiences as a young adult working as a media professional, and the challenges she’s faced along the way.

Caleb Thomason: Can you please share your name and exact job title?

Emma Sporleder: My name is Emma Sporleder and I currently work as the communications and marketing manager for the Northwestern Foundation & Alumni Association at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. I also work as an athletic communications assistant for Northwestern’s athletic department.

Caleb Thomason: How long have you worked in the media profession, and in which settings have you worked?

Emma Sporleder: In 2017, when I started college, I began working as a student worker for the Office of Recruitment/Admissions at Northwestern — because I was majoring in Mass Communication and expressed interest in assuming roles in marketing and digital media, the director of recruitment decided to take a chance on me by allowing me to take full control of the office’s social media. I gave hundreds-and-hundreds of campus tours to prospective students and created graphics, videos, and various digital posts for numerous social media platforms. I continued to work for the office of recruitment until I graduated from Northwestern in 2021.

In 2018, while I was still working for the recruitment office, I was offered another student assistant position within the athletic department at Northwestern (athletic communications assistant). This position allowed me to receive a tuition waiver and lowered my cost of attendance at Northwestern to zero. As an athletic communications assistant I was able to exercise all areas of mass communication as well as receive feedback on my work and creativity from a larger audience. I served as the primary photographer and supervised student-workers. I interviewed student athletes for media days and created videos for social media and assisted in maintaining and creating content for Northwestern athletics website — this included graphics, player bios, record books and schedule updates. I also produced press releases for the website which included game recaps and player features. Simply put, I provided support with promotion, publicity, and game day operations for 12 NCAA sports.

Upon graduation in May 2021, I began working for the Northwestern Foundation as the communications and marketing manager. Our job as a foundation and alumni association is to unite donor’s passions with Northwestern’s excellence. In this role I am responsible for the writing and designing of all Northwestern Foundation & Alumni Association’s marketing and communication documents: (alumni magazine, brochures, posters, press releases, event invitations, digital media graphics, postcard announcements and other direct and online mail). I’m also responsible for photography, video projects, social media and the distribution of all marketing and communication materials through bulk mail and social media venues. In other words, I write, design, and create every piece of information that is distributed from our office.

Caleb Thomason: What were the educational requirements and professional certifications that helped you obtain this job?

Emma Sporleder: For my current position, it is required to have earned a bachelor’s degree in communication, journalism, writing or marketing. In 2021 I graduated magna cum laude with a BS in mass communication while minoring in health and sports science. I’m currently furthering my education and working towards earning a master’s degree in sports administration.

Caleb Thomason: What is a typical salary for a media professional?

Emma Sporleder: Starting out is usually $40,000+

Caleb Thomason: What can a student start doing to prepare for entry into the media profession?

Emma Sporleder: Practice makes perfect. In my opinion it’s extremely important to utilize your creativity as much as possible and ALWAYS ask for feedback — in an industry like marketing or communications, your audience is everything, but you must understand that you aren’t going to grab the attention of every audience member.

Caleb Thomason: Who did you have to reach out to in order get into this career path?

Emma Sporleder: As a student at Northwestern, I was extremely involved in student organizations on campus. Because of my involvement around campus, I became very involved in the town my university is in (Alva, Oklahoma). By networking and forming connections around Northwestern and its community I was able to display my work ethic and eagerness to learn. Because of the work I was able to create for Northwestern athletics and the recruitment office, it was easy for me to obtain a full-time job at the Northwestern Foundation upon graduating.

Caleb Thomason: Can you please describe a typical day in the life of a media professional at the Northwestern Foundation?

Emma Sporleder: Well if we are talking about a typical work day, I begin work at 8 a.m. and leave work at 5 p.m. — anything that could happen in between those times would possibly be: sorting and editing photos, working on my monthly newsletter, designing the foundation’s magazine publications, preparing for events such as donor dinner, spring alumni reunion, sports hall of fame, homecoming, scholarship drive, etc., — and taking photos at those events. I create tons of social media posts that we strategically plan certain posting dates for to rack up the most engagement views that we can.

Caleb Thomason: Can you provide a few positives of being a media professional?

Emma Sporleder: What I’ve learned in this profession is that through experience you are able to nurture your creative talent. A few positives that come to mind instantly are the opportunity to meet people, being able to learn for a living and the opportunity to work on challenging projects. I also believe that it’s a super convenient industry with a ton of career diversity, effective communicators are able to adapt and conquer several different career paths or jobs.

Caleb Thomason: Can you provide a few negatives of the media profession?

Emma Sporleder: A con of working in media is public perception. Throughout college I learned that numerous people find journalists, communicators, marketers, and PR leaders untrustworthy. My job is to inform, promote and sell — so of course I’m bias to the organization I work for and the products we sell and/or promote. Communication can be difficult to decipher at times, especially in a changing world. Like I mentioned before, it’s hard to understand your audience and at times even identify who your audience is. This is a very competitive career field. Companies want to hire the best person for the job and the media industry is full of ambitious and impressive individuals — you have to find a way to make yourself stand out.

Caleb Thomason: What is the biggest challenge facing you personally as a media professional?

Emma Sporleder: The Northwestern Foundation & Alumni Association’s target audience is 50+, this specific group of alumni and friends of the university are our largest supporters/donators. The biggest challenge that I face in my profession is the lack of feedback that we receive. As an organization, we are constantly requesting feedback on the events we hold, the food we serve at our events, the guest speakers, etc., but from what I’ve realized over the year of working for this organization is that we receive little to no feedback on things that we would like to change about our organization, as well as the events that we hold to honor and highlight our donors, alumni and students.

Caleb Thomason: Who is the most interesting person you have met as part of your job? OR What is the most interesting thing that has happened to you as part of your job?

Emma Sporleder: Because I work in a university’s foundation I’m always fundraising and trying to find efficient solutions to raise money for the university. An interesting part of my job is that I create self-mailers that we send to donors asking for monetary gifts. We distribute this mailer to thousands of donors and I’m fully in charge of this project. It was extremely exciting and interesting to see the result and impact of something that I created — my mailer raised over $800,000. Because I typically work on digital media projects, I’m unable to personally witness the impact of my posts. This was an entirely different situation because I was able to witness the success of something I created, which also impacts the lives of students who attend Northwestern.

Caleb Thomason: What made you choose to go into this profession?

Emma Sporleder: I’ve known that I wanted to work in communications since I was 13. In eighth grade I started competing in public speaking competitions and quickly realized that I had developed strong communication skills. I believe that I’m able to clearly convey points to different audiences in several different ways — designing, speaking, writing, editing, and creating. I enjoy experiences that reach beyond my comfort zone and love to take advantage of any opportunity to exercise and display my creative skills.

Caleb Thomason: What would be your ultimate career in the media profession, and why?

Emma Sporleder: The ultimate career in media for me would be working for the NBA. I’ve always dreamed of being a team photographer or videographer for a professional basketball team. I’ve always been involved in athletics, if I wasn’t playing a sport, I would be working for a sport. I love the fast-paced team environment and I was quick to find out that working inside an office all day isn’t something that I want to do forever.