Chuck Scarborough, a prominent figure in broadcast journalism, boasts a long and illustrious career spanning several decades. Born on Nov. 4, 1943, Scarborough began his journey in journalism after graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in journalism. His career took off when he joined NBC News in 1974 as a correspondent.
Over the years, Scarborough’s dedication to journalism and his knack for storytelling propelled him to become one of the most recognizable faces in New York media.
NBC recently celebrated Scarborough’s half-century dedication to journalism with the network.
I had the opportunity to speak with Scarborough in the days following the celebration. Here’s what he had to share.
Christy Hinko: Do you remember your first day on the job at NBC?
Chuck Scarborough: I remember how nerve-wracking it was to come to this mecca of television, to the towering building in midtown at Rockefeller Center, and look up at this thing and realize I was going to work for the National Broadcasting Company. I had come from a station in Boston, which was sitting on some nondescript road in a nondescript building. On day one, we launched this new broadcast, called the Center, the first two-hour local news broadcast in the country. I knew that not only would every executive at NBC be watching, but everybody in the business would be watching to see how this was going to work. It was pretty daunting. The anticipation of saying “Good Evening…” for the first time was excruciating. As soon as I was on the air, as I recall, I just fell into the normal business of broadcasting; things clicked.
CH: Tell me about your most memorable assignment.
CS: There are a lot, but from a personal standpoint, it was a story I did on my father. A casual remark on one of our broadcasts led to a man, who had been shot down with my father in the Second World War, to call me. My father was a pilot, with the 15th Air Force flying out of Italy, in the European Theater; he was shot down behind enemy lines in Germany, occupied by Yugoslavia. The entire crew managed to escape; they arrived back at their base two weeks after they were missing-in-action. My father went on to fly 20 more missions, but never saw that crew again, that he had been shot down with, until this fellow came out of the woodwork in Brooklyn. He called me up, wondering if I was the son of the Chuck Scarborough that he had been shot down with. Check that story out some time, I think it’s called “The 17 Reunion.” It was amazing because Joe Couric, the fellow from Brooklyn, was the ball turret gunner on that mission. There was also a combat photographer on board that mission who took photographs of the entire escape. And Joe ended up with photographs. He came to my office with photographs of the story my father had told me. I was three years old when he got back from the war and it was just remarkable. It turned into this wonderful reunion story.
CH: Any advice to aspiring reporters and to those hoping to achieve longevity in journalism?
CS: Get a good liberal arts education, one that teaches you to think and write and be objective, and not be trapped by any particular ideology. After you’ve mastered that, you have to learn other skill sets, like if you are going to be a print journalist these days you then also have to learn to shoot video; you have to be multi-talented. You have to understand the differences between writing for the ear and writing for the eye, you have to learn how to be creative and above all, to do the basic fundamental principles of good, solid, objective journalism. Be skeptical of everything. Get a second source; check it out. If your own mother tells you she loves you… you check it out. And when in doubt, leave it out. If you’re going to last in the business, never let your own world view interfere with what you’re writing, and be skeptical of yourself as well. One crusty old editor once told me this sort of puzzling little aphorism that was…“beware of finding what you’re looking for.” Whenever you do a story, you have kind of a general idea from whatever background research you’ve done; that idea can blind you. You can become a victim of confirmation bias, looking for facts that support what you think you’re going to find and that’s just the wrong way to do it. You will get bitten eventually if you do that. This is not good journalism. You have to go out there and be skeptical of everything. Make sure you know your facts.
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