![\"Jared](\"https:\/\/WesternReport.fims.uwo.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/ehlIrQvM.png\")
<\/a>Photo courtesy of The Hockey News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Jared Clinton, 25, is now <\/em>a reporter for The Hockey News\u2019 website, but he\u2019s only a few years removed from working in a Manitoba grocery store.<\/p>\n \u201cI spent a few years working there, not knowing what the hell I wanted to do,\u201d says the bearded and bespectacled Clinton. \u201cI always loved hockey, so I wanted to find a way to get into hockey. I just didn\u2019t know what that way was.\u201d<\/p>\n Clinton was between schools, having logged four months of an undergrad in history at the University of Manitoba before dropping out. After the grocery gig, he thought sports business was the way to go. Clinton enrolled in a business program at the University of Winnipeg, but about 10 months in he found his calling and dropped out.<\/p>\n That calling was journalism.<\/p>\n \u201cI always had strong skills in English classes growing up so I thought what the hell,\u201d says Clinton.<\/p>\n He started a blog covering the American Hockey League \u2013 a league where young NHL prospects go to develop. This blog was Clinton\u2019s journalistic version of the American Hockey League, where he developed the skills necessary for the demands of reporting on hockey at The Hockey News.<\/p>\n Clinton then attended Humber College\u2019s journalism program, where learned the craft. He also was set up with an internship at The Hockey News. Clinton says his knowledge of online communities like Reddit, Mashable, and other social networks gave him an advantage in the field.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure of the specific ages of my coworkers,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m the youngest person there. Generationally, I became more a part of [online communities] growing up . . . I am frequenting them not just because I\u2019m a hockey fan, but because I grew up in the age where this is the way to get quick information and it\u2019s the best.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether or not they hired me because I had the ability to do that, or because of my performance during my internship there, I can\u2019t be certain.\u201d<\/p>\n Clinton was one of the few interns at The Hockey News in recent years to turn his position into a regular job. He began his days back then just as he does now: scouring social media sites, looking for quick visual stories on social media and turning them into posts for the site.<\/p>\n Managing editor Edward Fraser says Clinton\u2019s hiring was at least partly due to his ability to churn out a lot of quality content in a short amount of time,<\/p>\n \u201cHe can bang out stories \u2013 well-written and well-thought-out stories \u2013 very quickly which is a very important trait for online journalism,\u201d said Fraser. \u201cJared\u2019s got an excellent feel for what people want to see as well as what will do well on a very large-scale basis. He knows how to get people attracted to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n And this is an important time of year for attracting mass audiences to the game. Playoffs bring a different level of hockey, and it\u2019s always in the NHL\u2019s hope to bring in new audiences as the stakes become higher.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also The Hockey News\u2019 hope that new audiences are brought into the website by a combination of the playoffs, social media and oddity articles. Then those newcomers eventually buy magazine subscriptions.<\/p>\n Roping in the general audience is Clinton\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cThe posts we\u2019re looking for out of Jared is what we call \u2018look at the cat\u2019 posts,\u201d says Fraser. \u201cThose are the fun posts \u2013 fantastic plays or oddities \u2013 things that are of interest to the more general fan that might do well on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people will, and have, accused [Clinton] of using a lot of click bait headlines,\u201d he continues. \u201cBut I have to laugh at that because as one of our other writers points out, is a picture of food on a menu called \u2018eat bait?\u2019 It\u2019s kind of silly because in the end, what you want is people to read the work you\u2019ve done, and that\u2019s what all headlines have done since the beginning of time.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s what audiences do as the day moves on. Clinton\u2019s articles later in the day change gears, moving away from the \u201clook at the cat\u201d style, and focus on his other strengths.<\/p>\n \u201cOn top of just drawing traffic, you\u2019ve got to put out incredibly high quality of work,\u201d says Clinton. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to build a readership that trusts you, and wants to read what you\u2019re putting out. Part of that is connecting through social media to start growing that readership, but the other part is about being unique.\u201d<\/p>\n Clinton\u2019s afternoon articles focus on his unique hockey knowledge\u2013 the American Hockey League, advanced statistics, and teams around his hometown of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s basically how it works for journalism these days,\u201d says Clinton. \u201cThere\u2019s a big focus on specializations in any field . . . It\u2019s not unique to sports journalism, but it\u2019s certainly prominent.\u201d<\/p>\n Niches like these are what makes a journalist unique, and are vital in keeping an audience attentive, says Clinton.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to find a way to do something different,\u201d says Clinton. \u201cDo things that other people aren\u2019t doing yet, and hopefully that catches the audience\u2019s eye.\u201d<\/p>\n Or the eyes of employers. Clinton\u2019s finally found a job around the sport he loves, reaching mass audiences \u2013 both general and hardcore \u2013 in five to six articles a day.<\/p>\n Not bad for a former grocery clerk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s playoff time in the NHL, and with coverage ramping up in anticipation of some great matchups, The Hockey News\u2019 breaking news will be in the hands of a stock boy. Well, a former stock boy. Jared Clinton, 25, is now a reporter for The Hockey News\u2019 website, but he\u2019s only a few years removed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-day-in-the-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5590,"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions\/5590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernreport.fims.uwo.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}