By Charles Lefebvre

American journalist speaks about challenges facing industry in Medicine Hat

Mar 19, 2019 | 6:00 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — An American journalist with ties to Medicine Hat spoke about the challenges for reporters and the journalism industry in today’s political environment.

Craig Wilson, a writer and producer with CBS in New York City, spoke with the local Kiwanis Club Tuesday afternoon about being a member of the media in the current American political climate.

“If you’re listening to the President, I’m an enemy of the people,” he said.

Wilson, who is originally from Medicine Hat, has been a reporter in the United States for 25 years, says the current era is unlike anything he’s seen in his career.

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“First of all, you have a President and politicians that use media, like Twitter, social media, to talk directly to the American people, bypass the media, so there’s no filter,” he said. “You can say anything, and just have it consumed.”

“My job as a reporter, as a journalist, is to take what the president says, take what politicians say, analyze it, is it true, is it not true, put it in context. You have that tension now between what’s being disseminated immediately to the source, and someone like me who is trying to see whether there’s fact in what’s being said, or not fact.”

Wilson adds the rhetoric towards journalists, including being called “the enemy of the American people,” has made journalism dangerous for reporters in this era. He cited the shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland last year, and the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,

“These kinds of things are happening to journalists,” he said. “Journalists die in war zones, but we’ve rarely died because we’re just trying to do our job honestly. But that’s happening now.

He says there are several lessons journalists can learn from this era.

“It’s an effort to be unbiased, it’s an effort to reveal truth, that is the cornerstone of being a journalist is to shine light in darkness,” he said. “The reality is without a strong media, without an effort to maintaining those goals, our democracy withers.”