A little bit of everything
Jared Nelson talks about his career path from graduating Bethel University to becoming Editor-in-Chief at Prep Network.
By Taylor Hanson
Jared Nelson combines his passions of writing and sports as an editor for Prep Network. He was the fourth employee hired in 2016. He started out in the Marketing and Communication department and now, seven years later, he oversees 350 employees. Nelson didn’t always want to be an editor, but he always wanted to do something with sports. Now, as editor-in-chief, he can’t imagine wanting to do anything else.
Q: How did you get from high school to your current position?
A: I went to Bethel University and my experience was busy. I played basketball at Bethel, but more importantly I worked for The Clarion. I was the sports editor for a couple years and then I became editor-in-chief my senior year. In addition to that, I worked with Bethel sports information and I worked with athletics; I just did a little bit of everything honestly. Those experiences really helped me get experience as well.
I worked for the Pioneer Press in college as an intern and then I also worked as an intern for the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx. Those experiences were great and were really formative for me to find where my passions were, but also gain experience outside of what I was doing in the classroom. Then when I graduated, I took an internship in Nebraska and I was there for a summer. During my time there, I worked for a small start-up company and I was also doing freelance writing for the company I currently work for now.
That basically resulted in me being hired by Prep Network full-time in 2016. A lot of my experiences — primarily The Clarion but also Nebraska — prepared me for working with small companies. That’s basically what The Clarion is, it’s a small company and you have to do a little bit of everything to get the paper out. It really prepared me for my first job here. I’ve been here seven years now, and within a few years we started to grow, and I went from my role as Marketing and Communications manager to editor-in-chief. And that’s where I’m at now.
“It’s funny how your passions change and develop and grow just based on the experiences that you gain.” — Jared Nelson, editor
Q: Did you always want to be an editor?
A: I wouldn’t say I always wanted to be an editor but I did always want to work in sports. I always thought I wanted to work in media or communication, maybe writing, but I don’t know if I always wanted to be an editor.
My skills were writing, communication and reading. Even now, seven years in, I feel like I want to be an editor more than I want to work in sports. I love the work. I love being on a team. I love growing a media company way more than I love sports, but it’s cool that we get to do it in sports as well. It’s funny how your passions change and develop and grow just based on the experiences that you gain.
Q: What does a normal day look like for you?
A: When I think of a normal day for me, a couple things come to mind. First off, it’s very reactive. That’s kind of cliché right? Like everyday is different. And I wouldn’t go so far to say every day is totally different because it’s not, but every day somewhat changes based on the needs of our writers. So I serve our writers and I view that as my role- whatever our writers need, I’m here to provide. We have about 350 writers around the country, so it’s a lot of people.
This morning, for example, on my drive to work I got three or four text messages from our writers. One guy was like, “hey I’m having an issue with this story can you check it out?” Another guy was like, “hey the high school basketball season is starting soon can I get a press pass made?” So, so much of my job is reactive and I think that’s a really big part of it.
The other thing that is connected to that is communication. I am constantly on the phone. It’s just constantly communicating with people through phone calls, written communication, and text.
My work is very people-centric. We have this editorial team and we have ideas about the sort of content initiatives we want to implement and we have feedback for writers. We have websites that we are improving but the actual work comes down to communicating with other people.
Q: What are some “expectations vs. reality” moments you have experienced?
A: I want to clarify my role as editor because it’s a little bit different than an editor of a newspaper. My role as editor of The Clarion was reading every single word and looking at every single picture that went out. But that’s not really my role here. My role here is a lot more. We give our writers a lot more freedom and we don’t have that traditional editorial process like other newspapers do. I would say the reality includes way more delegation than I would expect. So much of my job is hiring people that I trust, who can also be good editors. I need to hire people that I trust and then surrender some control. I think as editors there’s a degree of control that we’re drawn to, like I want to dot every single ‘I’ and cross every single ‘T’, but the reality is that you have to delegate. I think that’s the one thing that really came to mind, is that there’s going to be other factors besides words and images on a page.
Q: What is the greatest barrier to entry for editors?
A: I think it’s the ability to have hard conversations. Let’s just say for example, you’re 20, you’re a woman and if I were to hire you, you would come in and you’d work. You’d read stuff on our site and you would say “that’s a problem” or “that’s not good enough.” And my response would be, “okay here’s the phone number of the person who wrote it, call them and tell them that.” He’d be a 45-year-old guy who’s been doing this for 20 years and you would have to tell him it needs to be better. Those are not fun conversations to have. But I have those conversations all the time and I don’t like them. So I think the ability to have hard conversations is what I would say because your whole job is having a red pen in your hand saying “make this better and do this differently” or “my way is better than you way,” that’s not fun. So I would say that is the barrier to entry for sure.
Q: What’s the best part of your job?
A: It’s the people for sure. And also I think the nature of my editorial work is very human. So it’s not like I sit at a desk and get a page and mark it with a red pen and then slide it back to someone. I’m doing that process, but it’s entirely different. I’m not doing so much of the red pen stuff as much as I’m communicating with people. So, that’s first and foremost is the relationships. And also, I think autonomy is another big aspect of this job. When we started, we had one website and now we have 150. It’s been so fun to chart the path and say “I want it to be like this.”
Q: What’s the best piece of advice you would have for someone trying to be an editor?
A: I think two things come to mind. I think first and foremost, just read. It doesn’t have to be the Star Tribune or the New Yorker, but just read books. Read words put next to each other. It’s so important and so helpful because you are going to get used to where commas go, how words fit together, and you will get used to phrasing, so just read.
“I think the advice I would give is to really care about your work and the place that you are at. I think you have to stick it out a little bit.” — Jared Nelson, editor
Q: Any other comments to add?
A: I think the advice I would give is to really care about your work and the place that you are at. I think you have to stick it out a little bit. You have to be around for a while and I think Bethel teaches students that part really well. And do the small things. It’s not like you are going to get super famous working for The Clarion but it’s really valuable to commit to something and put the time in. Then you get to see it at the end of the year and you’re like “wow I’m really proud of what we made.” And that’s very much my feeling here as well. I’m really proud of what we have made.
Nelson’s success at Prep Network proves that commitment and communication will get you where you want to go. His career path shows that every job has a purpose even if you can’t see it at the time. Pursue your passions, but allow your passions to shift as you grow … and don’t be afraid to try a little bit of everything.
