Chris Wilson

By Andrew Purcell

South African leader Nelson Mandela has just been released from a reclusive twenty-seven year prison sentence on charges of sabotage, amongst other crimes committed while leading the movement against racial segregation. The ensuing media frenzy from all across the globe swarmed the scene with a ferocious froth bringing top news anchors from around the world to cover this historic event.
South African native and George Mason University Communication professor Chris Wilson was present for all of it. In fact Professor Wilson’s story began growing up in the very town Mandela was imprisoned, Johannesburg. The moment that created such a journalistic genius was not immediately apparent for Wilson who reclaims in an interview that his initial dream had been to “live in a cabin in the woods and write fiction.” After realizing this dream was not reality and would certainly not be conducive to basic survival, nor the support of a family, he quickly came to his senses and began to embark on a personal journey to discover his true passion in journalism.
Wilson left South Africa at the age of twenty-two to travel Europe and did so for approximately eighteen months jumping from one country to another before ultimately reaching Italy, in which he taught English to students in Florence. This was Wilson’s first introduction to the world of academia and a path that he would unknowingly revisit in just a couple short decades.
Shortly there after Wilson abandoned his teaching position in Florence and moved to New York City to live off a rich uncle for a while in Greenwich Village. Still unable to shake his bug for creative writing he eventually landed a job with United Artists in the story department giving input and important feedback as to what scripts showed potential for the company to pick up. New York is also the location Wilson met his wife of thirty-five years, and just as things seemed to be moving in the direction he had always planned, the untimely passing of his father thrust him back to South Africa to tend to family business.
Realizing the lack of creative positions back in Johannesburg, Wilson finally began to use his degree in Economics, which he had all but forgotten in his search of creative success. As he puts it, “I was just at the right place at the right time,” and he began the economic journalism that he still practices today writing for a local South African magazine called Financial Mail. He continued to build his resume adding freelance credits that included popular North American publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Economist. Still settling into his new responsibilities as a journalist his desire to cover action stories was on the horizon as South Africa was entering, as Wilson provides, “a bloody revolution” with the long anticipated release of apartheid combatant, Nelson Mandela.
From this point forward Wilson’s life would forever change as he had his phones tapped, was pursued by police, and was thrust into danger on a regular basis. South Africa at this time was not safe and he recalls telling his wife that the first tank he sees drive by their door, she and their newborn son would be on the next plane back to the United States. As events played out, this never happened but Wilson being hooked on the thrills of what was happening dove head first into his work helping to shine the light on the oppressive political system, and prided himself on being able to get this information out to the world.
As the events in South Africa began to wind down Wilson capitalized on his journalistic success and joined the staff of Reuters, which would ultimately begin his tour back to the United States. Wilson’s first stop was Boston in which he worked as the Bureau Chief of the North East for the U.K. based news service before assuming chief editorial duties in Canada for three years.
Finally, Wilson would arrive back on United States soil as the Chief Correspondent on Capital Hill and resumed his academic post as a journalism professor at American University to satisfy what he called “a crying need” to teach. However, with the university showing very little interest and support in supplying the development necessary for the course, Wilson again stepped down. It would be a chance meeting with George Mason Communication professor, Steve Klein, that would once again lure Wilson back into education giving him a genuine sense of interest and the freedom to develop his vision.
The idea that Wilson once had to educate students on real life scenarios, giving them that competitive edge, with the ability and knowledge to get their foot in the door, has finally come to fruition as his brainchild, Business and Economic Journalism, is now a regular part of the communication curriculum at George Mason University.