Alumna Meg Croney-Clark discovered her love for FSU by chance but intentionally created opportunities to develop her career

By Kaley Hoppenworth

Meg Croney-Clark is no stranger to telling stories through the art of videography and editing.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that as she talks about her own story, she pieces everything together in the same manner she would a film project. As she pauses to reflect on the defining moments in her career that brought her to where she is now, Croney-Clark speaks confidently.

“This is my passion,” she says. “I am able to take this, run with it, and make a career out of it on my own.”

Croney-Clark graduated from Florida State University in 2019 with her bachelor’s degree in English-Editing, Writing, and Media, with a minor in communication. Her time at FSU consisted of regularly stepping outside of her comfort zone to pursue the opportunities that inspired her future endeavors.

She then set out to make her mark in the digital sphere.

The videography company she founded in 2015, MCC Media, provides a wide range of content, anywhere from wedding videography to athlete highlight reels. Croney-Clark also offers her skills as a freelance video editor for CBS Sports Golazo since April 2024.

Her wide variety of interests, she says, allows her to “be open to any opportunities that come my way.”

Originally from Kentucky, Croney-Clark had her mind set in 2015, during her high school senior year, on attending the University of Kentucky in her hometown of Lexington. At the same time, though, her father, James Clark, was interviewing for a faculty position with FSU’s College of Social Work.

Despite her initial reluctance, Croney-Clark agreed to travel to Tallahassee with her parents to see the university for herself. As she explored the campus with her mother, Liz Croney, by her side, she knew FSU was the place she was meant to be.

“It was a beautiful campus,” Croney-Clark says now. “It was hard to say, ‘I don’t want to go here at all.’ I was totally mesmerized by the campus life and everything that Tallahassee and Florida State have to offer. My decision was changed.”

I am inspired by Meg’s dedication to mastering the technical demands of videography while also building her business. I have seen her work long hours and take risks to create the highest quality deliverables possible.

— James Clark, FSU’s provost and executive vice president

Moving out of state for her first year of college was a daunting experience, she admits, but one she did not have to do alone. Her father was professor and dean of the College of Social Work until January 2022, when he became FSU’s provost and executive vice president, and he played an important part in helping his daughter find her home away from home.

As she speaks about her father’s work and effort he devotes to the university, Croney-Clark’s face glows with pride and admiration. What makes her the happiest is when she recalls the way he supported her throughout her time at FSU.

Likewise, her father takes immense pride in his daugher’s work.

“I am inspired by Meg’s dedication to mastering the technical demands of videography while also building her business,” he says. “I have seen her work long hours and take risks to create the highest quality deliverables possible.”

Working as hard as she did, Croney-Clark found that time with her father provided the rest she needed.

“It was really nice in my freshman year to just spend Sundays with him,” she says, describing the breaks she took from schoolwork. “Having dinner was nice to just step away.”

Speaking of the comforts home, Croney-Clark eventually found herself in Kentucky post-graduation, back to where her love for sports media all began. As a child, she played multiple sports, such as soccer, swimming, and basketball.

Thinking back to her youth, Croney-Clark remembers that “growing up around so many passionate sports fanatics actually sparked my love for sports overall.”

In that way, she adds, Tallahassee and Lexington share many similarities. Now, Croney-Clark has fueled that spark through her work with CBS Sports. When it comes to her current videography journey, she says she is most proud of her recent work.

“I look back, and I can see how far I’ve come from the beginning when I started doing this,” she says. “It’s just a total, total difference in my work, for sure.”

The beginning for Croney-Clark goes back to when she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She was the sorority’s public relations chair from Dec. 2017 until Dec. 2018, and she gained valuable experience by taking graduation photos of her sorority sisters.

Croney-Clark still looks upon her first experiences in the field with deep appreciation and fondness, especially one that took place in the spring semester of her junior year at FSU. In 2018, she joined the Seminole Productions team as a volunteer. Up until that point, Croney-Clark admits, “I really had no idea what I wanted to do.”

Little did she know that a one-credit-hour elective course, working with the College of Communication and Information’s sports events production department, would be a starting point for her life path.

“I’m really thankful to have had that experience with them,” she says. “They pointed me in the direction that I am going now in my career.”

As Croney-Clark describes her first time stepping behind the camera with Seminole Productions, the sense of awe returns to her face as she recounts what that moment was like.

“I had worked with smaller, normal cameras,” she explains. “But they obviously had the huge Panasonic, just giant cameras that I had never worked with. They went through it once and said, ‘Go on out there.’”

And that she did.

Working behind the camera and filming in person for the live broadcasts of softball, baseball, basketball, and volleyball games was “totally transformative” for Croney-Clark’s career.

Now, she has transformed her passion into growing MCC Media. In her work, Croney-Clark aims to capture the lives of others and tell their stories through moving pictures. She carefully considers these personal elements when she plans a video with her clients.

Croney-Clark says over the years she has become more confident in herself as a storyteller. Her first approach is to translate her interview with clients into a video concept.

“Initially, going into strange situations or meeting new people was intimidating, but now, I’m doing it almost daily because I work with so many different people,” she says. “Being comfortable with talking and asking questions gets a lot easier with practice.”

Filming the raw footage is like the beginning sketches of a story, and Croney-Clark’s editing skills develop that sketch into a full-fledged, three-dimensional encounter. To bring a story from flatness to full effect, Croney-Clark goes from filming to editing seemingly in the blink of an eye.

“I remember the feeling that I had when I was there,” she explains. “After I film something, I kind of lose that feeling or memory,” adding that she tries to edit “as quickly as possible,” which has increased her success as clients appreciate the quick turnaround.

Her mother has continued to be by her side as well, offering support and encouragement she needed to start MCC Media.

“Her amazing eye as a photographer sparked my love for cameras as a child,” Croney-Clark says, adding that her sisters Pearson and Cameron Croney-Clark have been a big part of her support system as well. “My mom’s work was hung all over our house growing up, and now it’s hanging in my parents’ home in Tallahassee. She never missed a moment to photograph my sisters and me at all our sporting events growing up.”

As Croney-Clark talks and composes her own story, she thinks back to her first interviewing assignment for a class. In the summer of 2018, Croney-Clark set out on an adventure in Spain, through FSU International Programs’ Editing, Writing, and Media Program in Valencia. During her time studying abroad, Croney-Clark conducted her first-ever professional interview.

The story assignment was for Nomadic Noles, a magazine produced by students in the EWM Program, and the interview was with Gemma Pascual, the director of reception, cleaning, and maintenance crews for FSU Valencia’s campus.

This was Croney-Clark’s first experience “writing a full article that was published,” and she worked on the project from start to finish, including “interviewing someone, gathering a story, and building the layout with the visuals.”

Looking back, Croney-Clark clearly sees the influence that interview had on her career.

“It brought me out of my shell,” she says. “Now I’m having to do that every single day with my videography.”

Her father is pleased that his daughter found her confidence as an undergraduate student.

“FSU helps young people dream big about their careers and Meg’s professors, friends, and overall college experiences were very influential,” Clark says.

As she continues to build MCC Media, Croney-Clark devotes her days to honing her craft and learning new editing techniques. She has become proficient in Adobe software, such as Premiere Pro, and she is constantly striving to improve.

“Every single day, I am looking up a different editing technique or trying to figure out how to make something look even better than before,” she says.

While someone might be tempted to look at Croney-Clark’s success with a kind of starry-eyed admiration that leaves the person wondering what they want to do in their own life, her advice for up-and-coming creatives is quite simple.

“Definitely join as many clubs and as many things that pique your interest as possible because you never know who you might meet,” she says. “Get out of your shell and explore.”

Croney-Clark will continue to explore the moments that speak to her, whether that is continuing to work with CBS Sports or planning another trip to Europe. Wherever she lands, Croney-Clark is excited for all the opportunities to come her way.

Kaley Hoppenworth is a double major in English-Editing, Writing, and Media and in social work. She also is the editor in chief for Her Campus at FSU.

Follow the English department on Instagram; on Facebook; and on X.