Becoming a journalist wasn’t exactly a planned career path for Craig Wilson. The two time
Emmy Award winning journalist, and producer charts his journey with intersections; moments
that happen during the everyday routine of life, that would change his life and send him on down
the road towards, his presentation this morning in front of communications students at Camosun
College.
“You get up everyday, and you reach for your glasses,” says Wilson. “And you got about the
routine of life.”
Wilson says one of the first important moments in his life and career came while working at the
local newspaper in his hometown of Medicine Hat, Alberta. It was there that his new boss fresh
from Ontario, a man named Andy Bryce, would hand him an article that Wilson says changed his
life forever.
It was an article about legendary American broadcaster, journalist and war correspondent Edward
R. Murrow. The story of Murrow’s broadcasts from rooftops during the London Blitz inspired
Wilson to become a journalist. He wanted to tell stories as they happened, to capture content
such as Murrow did decades before.
Bryce would eventually fire Wilson but instead of giving up, it only pushed Wilson to follow
other pursuits. He went on to do communications for Alberta tourism but it was a lonely job.
However, this job would lead him home to Medicine Hat where he would come to another major
intersection in his life. After a series of events which began with Wilson being a good samaritan,
helping out some folks from out of town, he would later invite him to their wedding. At that
wedding, he would meet the woman that would become his girlfriend, and later, his wife.
Young and in love, Wilson abandoned his small town Alberta life for a new home in New York
with his new girlfriend. There, he attended Columbia University, earning a Bachelor of Arts.
A cold call to CBC’s Nolton Nash led him to a job assisting the CBC bureau chief covering scrums
and the daily Secretary-General press briefings during the Balkan war.
Eventually, his talent for covering the news would lead him to his current job at CBS as a writer,
producer, and editor of news for programs such as the Today Show. A career he owes he says, to
recognizing life’s little intersections. Wilson says acting on opportunity allowed him to speak to
Bishop Desmond Tutu in an elevator, and give Peter Mansbridge an eye witness account over the
phone, of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre as Tower 2 fell.
Wilson says working for big networks has allowed him to cover big stories but pointed out that
all stories are important to where you are. Writers don’t have a power but a responsibility to
cover both sides of a story. Wilson advised that aspiring writers should look for the character or
the person that the story is affects and that in the time of Donald Trump, to tell the story as
accurately as possible using the facts. While many stories are about power or the abuse of it,
stories can be found anywhere, one only has to not get so caught up in life that you miss the
intersections when they come along.
“Watch out for the unexpected moments in the routine of life,” Wilson said. “It’s in those
moments, you find opportunity.”
Hopefully, for the students gathered in Andy Bryce’s Communications 165 class this morning,
this was one of those moments.
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