Allif Karim (‘18) is the Sports Director at WDVM-TV in Hagerstown, Maryland. 

At SUNY Oswego, he worked at WTOP-10 TV as an on-air talent, hosting major hockey broadcasts as well as acting as a sports anchor.

For the Media Summit, Karim will be one of the six career connectors who will offer advice to SUNY Oswego students looking to enter various aspects of broadcasting, journalism or other communications fields.

Matt Watling: When you were a student, what was your experience with the media summit like?

Allif Karim: I remember my first Media Summit was the one Al Roker and the Today Show had their segment in the morning, so really, really early in the morning the campus center was filled with students and Al Roker was there with his energy.

For me, my experience has always been to look at [the career connectors and their jobs in the industry] as, “Look, this is where I want to be, how do I get there?”

MW: How did the Media Summit give you the tools to find success in the industry?

AK: The biggest part of the Career Connectors event for me was being able to speak with someone candidly about their career and experiences, things about their personal lives that have helped them with their careers, the challenges you have to overcome to pursue an industry career whether it’s broadcasting, newspaper, radio, anything in comms, media or the arts. 

I have a distinct memory of Ben Amey (‘10) who, at the time, was a producer in Albany and he very openly told me things I needed to hear at that time because I had asked him specifically about the kind of look you need for an on-air talent.

MW: How has your job changed because of COVID-19?

AK: March 12, when sports was shut down, our sports department was converted into providing news content. We were turned into news multimedia journalists. And you could see that across the board in local sports. 

To me, that isn’t a bad thing because [while] my job is to cover sports and to be a sports journalist, the emphasis is not on sports, the emphasis was on ‘journalist’ word, specifically during the pandemic, proving we can be journalists. Our job isn’t just to shoot games and give you scores. Our job is to tell you stories in the community that matter.

MW: What was your reaction to the treatment of journalists during the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests?

AK: When you talk about the traumatic events the nation has gone through, I think what you’ve seen based on the treatment of journalists is a lot of mistrust at points because the media environment itself allows people to build their own world. You can fine tune the algorithm through your social media apps to be able to confirm your world views, but journalism has always been, in my view, to show both sides.

MW: Do you have any advice for some students?

AK: There are different ways to cover sports or tell sports stories, and it’s up to all of us to ask ourselves “How do we want to do that?” And the bigger question is, what kind of storyteller am I? Am I someone that is extremely personality driven or do I simply love the act of conversation? 

There’s different ways of approaching the job market, and the [industry] itself is always changing.

I think the biggest question is how can we enter the market while being ourselves, and I really don’t have an answer to that.