New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Icon of the airwaves
Chuck Scarborough has never encountered a year like this one.
In his more than 45 years in the news business, the iconic WNBC anchor has covered wars, hurricanes, snowstorms, elections and even the 9/11 terrorist attack that devastated New York City, where he has worked for so many years. But of all those monumental events, both tragic and triumphant, none had driven him out of his studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Even an anthrax attack on 30 Rock in 2001 couldn’t force him and his colleagues out, says Scarborough. “Even with that, the news operation stayed put,” he says. “The only thing that has caused us to scatter was COVID.”
Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit New York hard in March, caused him and his colleagues to work from home for at least four months. For Scarborough, that meant broadcasting out of his home in north Stamford, where he lives with his wife, two dogs and a cat.
Though he says the athome broadcast “took on a rhythm after a while,” it was never ideal. “The one thing I was never able to defeat was the delay,” Scarborough says. “What I was saying in (my) library was arriving at 30 Rock two seconds later, which made cross-talk very difficult.”
It’s been a strange, awkward, scary time, he says. But if more than four decades in the news business have taught Scarborough anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.
Scarborough began his career as an anchor and operations manager at WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Miss., and also worked at stations in Hattiesburg, Miss., Atlanta and Boston before arriving at WNBC, where he has been since 1974. For years, he was partnered with Sue Simmons, who retired in 2012.
In 2017, Scarborough’s career had another shift, as he went from anchoring the late-night newcast to helming the 6 p.m. broadcast.
During his time in television, Scarborough has seen the world and the news business change in multiple ways. He says the rise of cable news, the internet and social media have all changed the way that he and others in his business have done their jobs. But, Scarborough says, he believes that the core of his work has remained the same.
“The cardinal rule has always been that we maintain objectivity,” Scarborough says. “We want to make sure we’re not being unfair to one side of story.”
He says, even in today’s media landscape, where cable news and the internet frequently provide “a lot of shows that are strictly
opinion,” there’s still a need for the straightforward news reporting that he’s long taken as his trademark.
“There will always be a market for good solid information on what’s going on in the world,” Scarborough says.
Among all the stories he’s covered, Scarborough says the one that probably stands out the most was the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, in which Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 elementary school students.
Scarborough says he still remembers receiving the call to cover the aftermath of the shootings on that brisk December day, a few weeks before Christmas. He remembers arriving at the “Norman Rockwell town” of Newtown, and gazing out at the school.
“I stood there imagining all the families in this town,” Scarborough recalls, his voice breaking. “Twenty families lost a young child that day. Standing in front of that school that night just tore my heart out.”
This year has also been a difficult one in many ways, Scarborough says, with the pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and a presidential race all making for a tense, sometimes grueling time to be in the news business. The pandemic was particularly unsettling, Scarborough says, as it temporarily displaced him and others from the studio where they had been delivering the news for years.
“At the outset of pandemic, when we realized gravity of it, we decided we should, as quickly as possibly, get cameras into the homes of people (who needed them),” Scarborough says.
Due partly to his age, (Scarborough is 76), he got “first dibs” on a camera, and a makeshift studio was set up in his library.
And every weeknight before 6 p.m., he’d come into the room, fire up the lights and other equipment himself, and do his broadcast live from Stamford. It took getting used to.
But there were benefits to being sequestered in Stamford, instead of in the New York apartment where Scarborough used to live. “When I was confined to the house, the fact that we could walk out of house with two dogs and take a walk in the woods was really a lifesaver,” Scarborough says.
Yet delivering the news from a distance always felt strange. “It felt a little isolating,” not being able to be in the studio with his colleagues.
Eventually, the COVID numbers in New York fell enough for it to be considered safe for Scarborough to go back to 30 Rock, and, in July, he resumed traveling into the city. “I’m very grateful to be back. It works better this way,” he says.
But the pandemic and social unrest of the past few months have made New York somewhat unrecognizable, Scarborough says. The streets are empty and many business are closed. It’s not the hub of activity that Scarborough has always cherished, and that’s sad to see, he says.
“The city that never sleeps is now sort of sleepwalking,” Scarborough says. “It makes me concerned about it. I’m concerned about this great city.”
One thing that won’t be missing from New York any time soon is Scarborough’s voice. He says he’s just begun a two-year contract, and hopes to continue in his position for at least that long. But he knows it will one day be time to hang up the microphone, and when that time comes, Scarborough hopes to be remembered well.
“I’d like to be remember as somebody who always did an honest job and always gave both sides of stories,” he says.