Christopher Nelson is a senior assignment editor for NBC News. He has been a part of the broadcast television network’s evolution to a multi-platform content provider and has worked across broadcast and digital formats. In addition to editing, Nelson is also a reporter and writer. In a previous stint with NBC News, Nelson was a researcher on the Network News Desk, after having joined NBC News as part of the highly regarded News Associates program.
He tells rolling out, “Growing up, I loved watching the news. I always liked being in the know and sharing information with people. As I became older, I began to view journalism as a public service. Journalism is my way of being a servant leader.”
The Path
“Several years ago, I interviewed Ntozake Shange after her play For Colored Girls was made into a film. It was an amazing experience,” he recalls. “Very early in my career, I wrote for B, free daily, [which is] a newspaper for millennials in Baltimore. I had a cover story run on a blog called the Baltimore Slumlord Watch. The blog called out property owners who neglected their properties and, therefore, harmed the vitality of the city.”
Once a freelance multimedia journalist, Nelson contributed to On Being a Black Lawyer and TheLoop21. He also reported and was a broadcast apprentice for WJZ-TV. He’s worked as an investigative intern at WBFF-TV in Baltimore and as an on-air intern at WEIU-TV in Charleston, Illinois.
“I have worked for free in order to develop my skills further and to support outlets whose mission I believed in. I always believe there comes a time when you may have to say no or move on if you are not valued,” he explains. “You do not always get paid in money; you can get paid in experience. Just do not allow yourself to be taken advantage of or not be able to have had your experiences add value.
“I predict we will have more independent content providers who the major media companies end up distributing. I think podcasts will grow in the next two years and help generate multi-platform ideas and initiative.”
Nelson is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, M. S. L. and Loyola College in Maryland, B.A.
@cenelson08’s popular tweet:
#Blackgirlmagic: African-American women are golden at Rio Olympics https://t.co/aKv4dCLwJs via @nbcnews
— Christopher (@cenelson08) August 20, 2016
