Staff Profile: City News Editor Ben Wilson

Home Study Break Staff Profile: City News Editor Ben Wilson
Staff Profile: City News Editor Ben Wilson
Junior Ben Wilson is studying politics and journalism (Ben Willson/Collegian)

When junior Ben Wilson refused to eat a hamburger at the age of 5, he didn’t know he was embarking on a challenge that would persist into his ‘20s. In realizing he had never eaten a hamburger, he dared himself to avoid eating the food for as long as possible. 

He has now still never eaten the common American meal.

Whether it’s with his diet or his politics, Wilson has a history of sticking to his principles. When not editing the City News section of The Collegian, the conservative holdout writes for “The Sara Carter Show.” His work for Carter began over the summer with writing a few stories each day. Over the course of the internship, he wrote around 120 stories in total. 

Wilson said he respects Carter and her work tremendously, so much so that he just recently began writing for her again, writing around six stories on weekends.

“It’s been an amazing experience learning from Sara who is incredibly successful in her field and the kindest woman in D.C.”

In addition to his political writing, he also spent his first semester interning at the White House for the Trump Administration. Through the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, Wilson was able to get a taste of the conservative movement in the nation’s capital. It proved to be his happiest and most memorable semester yet. One of his best memories includes President Donald Trump retweeting one of his tweets.

Now that he’s back in Hillsdale, however, Wilson said he’s happy to be in classes again. The politics major and journalism minor said his favorite courses have been with director of the Dow Journalism Program John Miller and associate professor of politics Khalil Habib. Wilson said it was his classes that cultivated his interest and appreciation for the field of journalism. 

“I started to realize that the actual power in our society is within journalists, and that politicians really have no power. They’re beholden to special interests, they’re beholden to voters, they’re beholden to all sorts of things, and that they can’t do the actual change they want to, but with the power of a journalist keyboard and publishing something, you can take down the most powerful people in society.”

Wilson’s dream job is owning his own media organization, which he said will allow him to most freely fight for his values as a Christian and a patriot. 

“I think we’re losing our country. I think it’s not too late, unlike a lot of people I think we can bring it back and I want to fight for those things. I think owning something where I could do that with the help of really talented people would be a very cool and fulfilling job.”