A well-recognized and trusted broadcast presence in New York Metropolis during the last 50 years has signed off the air for the ultimate time: Chuck Scarborough, who has anchored or coanchored WNBC TV since Nixon was in workplace, America was in Vietnam and town itself was teetering on financial failure, shocked many viewers Thursday when he introduced on air that he had simply delivered his ultimate newscast.
Whereas Scarborough, 81, hadn’t precisely saved his semi-retirement plans a secret in latest weeks, the goodbye little question got here as unwelcome information to many loyal and longtime viewers.
“From one Chuck to a different,” tweeted New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, “Finest needs in your subsequent chapter, Chuck. You didn’t simply inform us the information, you made NYers really feel at house and for that we thanks.”
Scarborough joined NBC Information in March 1974 as co-anchor with Jim Hartz of WNBC-TV’s then-new 5:00 PM newscast, ultimately, he turned the station’s lead anchor at 6pm and 11pm, and in 2003, he turned what many referred to as the unofficial “dean” of New York-area tv information anchors when WABC-TV anchor Invoice Beutel retired after 37 years.
Through the years at WNBC, Scarborough labored with colleagues Marv Albert, Len Berman, Jack Cafferty, Dr. Frank Subject, Pat Harper, Pia Lindstrom, Sue Simmons, Al Roker, and Tom Snyder, amongst others.
Scarborough says he’ll proceed to work on particular stories and different station tasks for WNBC, however his day-and-day on the anchor desk was over as of Dec. 12.
Right here’s a transcript of Scarborough’s ultimate sign-off message. Learn it beneath, or hearken to the video above.
Chuck Scarborough: That is my ultimate broadcast as anchor of the night information on NBC 4 New York.
Firstly, I’m profoundly grateful to your belief. With out that, I’d not have survived for greater than half a century on this job and been allowed to occupy this entrance row seat to the historical past of our fascinating metropolis and the world past for thus lengthy.
4 months after I arrived in 1974, President Nixon, who received a landslide election simply two-years earlier, resigned. The primary presidential resignation within the nation’s historical past.
In 1975, New York Metropolis plunged into efficient chapter and the Vietnam battle got here to a chaotic finish.
The tempo of breaking information has been relentless ever since. We’ve been by means of blackouts collectively, riots, crime waves, hurricanes, blizzards, financial crises, corruption (private and non-private), 9/11, wars and a pandemic.
However simply as necessary have been the tales of human achievement within the arts and sciences, of forgiveness, kindness, restoration, and resilience.
If there may be one overarching lesson I’ve discovered, it’s that we’re extra resilient than we notice – individually and as a metropolis and nation. We get knocked down, and we come again stronger.
I shall be eternally grateful for the privilege of working with so many devoted, good and proficient broadcast journalists on each side of the digital camera, some risking their lives in harmful locations to convey you the information.
On this age of algorithms and cable channels herding the citizenry into like-minded silos of A.I., and social media fictions suffocating fact, it has by no means been extra necessary to do what they accomplish that effectively: hue to the fundamental rules of accuracy, objectivity and equity.
I’m going to go away you with a ultimate thought I shared with my NBC colleagues earlier this 12 months once they gathered within the Rainbow Room to rejoice my fiftieth anniversary with the Nationwide Broadcasting Firm – itself a quintessential American success story, based by a Russian immigrant named David Sarnoff, who started by promoting newspapers at age 15 to assist assist his struggling household.
I urged my colleagues to do one thing I nonetheless do to re-establish perspective, appreciation, a way of mission.
Stroll out on Fifth Avenue, and look again by means of the Channel Gardens, throughout the skating rink, above the statue, at this towering constructing with awe, and say: “I work right here. I work right here, and that is necessary. What I do is necessary. I work for the Nationwide Broadcasting Firm, the oldest and largest tv community on this nation, with a storied historical past.”
Really feel the load of that historical past. The load of the duty that all of us bear to get it proper, to do it effectively, to make it attention-grabbing. It’s an honor to work with you.
That message was geared toward our work right here, the grinding challenges of every day information gathering. However it simply as simply applies to our metropolis, and to our nation, and to all of you – all of us.
All of us must raise our eyes often from the political fevers and societal imperfections of the day and recognize what we’ve, how far we’ve come, and the chance we’ve been given to proceed our journey towards a extra good union.
Thanks, and good night time.
