Throughout high school, Karmen Morrison was heavily involved in sports, especially basketball. It was this involvement that led her to where she is today. Helping out at a multimedia journalism camp at the University of Georgia.
” I ended up being female athlete of the year at my city so I did a few interviews for that and I had fun” says Morison. “I was like, I think I can do this”
It turns out that the exposure to being interviewed in multiple enviornments, including radio stations, is what gave Morrison the idea to study multimedia journalism at Florida State University and later at the University of Georgia. Also, as a woman in sports she made a point to advocate for equality for women in sports through interviewing and social media.
This newfound passion allowed Morrison to have an idea of what she wanted to do after high school and get her mom to stop asking so many questions about her future.
Morrison was inspired to continue advocating for women in sports during her time at FSU when she experienced a clear inequality between the men’s and women’s teams.
“We had a pretty good football team when I was there, and they would always get free shirts,” says Morrison. “We were distric champ…athlete of the year and like bro why aren’t we getting free shirts? What’s going on?”
They did eventually get the free t-shirts, however, it is an example of an inequality that women’s sports around the world experience. This was also a motivational source for Morrison to solidify her newfound passion of creating more equality in sports
Morrison’s favorite form of learning information has been through interviewing sources the way she was once interviewed as an athele in high school. One of her favorite interviews was with Lonni Alameda, reknowned softball coach at FSU.
“They had a really late game that I think went to 2 a.m. in the morning.” Morrison said. “She spoke about a lot of things that could change with the Women’s College World Series”
Getting to interview Alameda and talk about unfairness in women’s college softball was an opportunity for Morrison to futher advocate for women’s sports and reach out to a younger audience as well by pointing out equal pay in some sports, such as tennis, and the importance of having representation.
Even though Karmen Morrison may not have seen herself in multimedia journalism, she is glad where she has ended up. Even though she claims she is still a “rookie” in the business she is eager to continue to be able to speak up and advocate for equality and representation in sports through interviews and social media content in order to educate the public.
” I think it’s all about equality.” says Morrison. “Representation matters. Obviosly I’m a black woman so you gotta be able to reach back and show little girls, even little boys… and show them that it’s possible”
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