12 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JUNE 2019
CHUCK SCARBOROUGH:
BY RUTH BASHINSKY
New Yorkers young and old know
that familiar face and distinctive
voice that have graced television
screens for decades.
Chuck Scarborough, the dapper
anchor who has led breaking news
coverage locally and abroad — garnering
awards, including 36 local
Emmys — reigns as the king of New
York news. This year marks his 45th
anniversary at WNBC, the New York
City flagship station of NBCUniversal,
making him the longest-serving anchor
in New York TV history.
The Press met the legendary newsman
at his seventh-floor offices at 30
Rockefeller Plaza. Scarborough spoke
about his father, the changing mediascape,
and his love of furry creatures.
During our chat, Scarborough invited
anyone who shares his passion for
animal welfare to join him and his
wife, Ellen, at the 13th Annual GET
WILD Benefit on June 29 from 5 to 7
p.m. at Little Orchard in Southampton.
And at WNBC's Clear the Shelters
pet adoption drive is on August 17.
Congratulations on your 45-year
anniversary at WNBC. Did you
think you'd be here this long? I
came here in 1974. There was no cable
television, just three major networks
and a couple of independent stations.
NBC New York had suffered a terrible
rating decline and they were looking
to do something dramatic and put the
first two-hour newscast on from 5
p.m. to 7 p.m. They were looking for
someone to do that. I was hired out of
Boston. I was 30 years old. Forty-five
years later and I guess it worked.
How have the stories changed? It’s
not so much the stories have changed;
it's just that we have an explosion of
platforms. The coverage from all
sources have made it a little more
challenging. I would say fundamentally
human behavior hasn’t changed
over the time I have been doing this.
There is the same degree of complacency
and heroism.
It may be hard to imagine, for
some, but how were the days
of news coverage pre-internet?
Before we had the internet,
we had these very disciplined
systems that were well-managed
disseminating
information and
making sure
we were living
up to the
standards
we are
living up to
as journalists:
being
fair, and
h o n e s t
and balanced
and
mak i n g
sure our
sources were
accurately and
positively sourced.
All of the basic
rules of journalism
and the structure
to reinforce them.
The internet came
up. It provided a
way for anybody to
disseminate globally
anything. That has
helped us in some
ways but has also
created this enormous
arena for mischief.
How do you feel about
the term “fake news”?
I think to fire at every
news organization out
there isn’t fair. But I
think there is plenty
of questionable material
floating around the
internet. Certainly, it
has enabled the amplification
of bad human
behavior; by that I mean
you can bully someone
now anonymously and
organize it.
Has it changed your role?
I don’t think my job has
changed a great deal. My
standards certainly
haven’t and our National
Broadcasting
Company standards
certainly haven’t. I do
have these concerns
about the quality
of information
that
p e opl e
are receiving
because the
whole point
of the First
Amendment
and the
whole point
of establishing
a free
press was to
make certain
that citizenry
A) was informed
to make
a reasonable
decision at the
ballot box and
B) has one more
check on power.
These are
very important
functions in a
democracy.
You have done
thousands of
stories. Was
there one that
had the most impact
on you? The
biggest impact by far was 9/11. We
were on the air for a week straight
without interruption covering that.
That changed the entire globe that
day. In the immediate aftermath of
9/11, once NY settled down, I went
off to the Philippines to cover what
had been a little unknown corner in
the war on terror. We had 160 special
forces troops down in the southern
Philippines helping the military
army pursue the Abu Sayyaf terror
group linked to Al Qaeda. What I
saw there were posters of Osama
Bin Laden being sold in kiosks on the
street. It hit me at that point soon after
9/11 what a pervasive and dangerous
force radical Islam was, and I didn’t
confront the global nature of it until
I was in the Philippines.
What were some of the most memorable
Long Island stories you covered?
The biggest story was Flight
TWA 800 in 1996 that was going to
Paris. As soon as we got word that
a plane had vanished from radar
we jumped on air. I was in contact
with the helicopter and as he was
approaching the South Shore of Long
Island where the plane vanished we
could see a strange glow in the distance
and as the helicopter got closer
we realized it was the jet fuel from the
plane that was burning. The ocean
was on fire. It was the most chilling
thing I’ve ever seen. Your heart fell
when that happened. Families were
wiped out. It was just hideous. The
Pine Barrens fire was another. It was
a big story and a disastrous fire, 2,500
acres burned. And the Avianca Flight
52 crash from Bogota, Colombia to
New York. The Boeing 707 ran out of
fuel after a failed attempt to land at
Kennedy Airport and crashed off the
North Shore of Long Island in Cove
Neck. Sixty-five of the 149 passengers
on board were killed.
I understand you have your commercial
pilot license. Do you still
fly? My father flew bombers in the
second World War. When he came
back I was two years old when I met
COVER FEATURE
Chuck Scarborough looking camera-rey before his
newscast at WNBC studios at Rockefeller Plaza.
(Courtesy of WNBC)
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