Veteran News Anchor Drew Scott Inducted Into Long Island Journalism Hall Of Fame

In the summers of his youth, while his friends were busy riding their bikes to the beach, Drew Scott was perfecting the fine art of trespassing — sneaking in the back doors of some of Hollywood’s top radio stations.

And, amazingly, management didn’t kick him out.

Instead, they invited him into the newsroom, teaching him how to change the ribbons and paper of the teletype machine. He would watch the reporters tell the news and the sportscasters reconstruct games, and the young boy was fascinated, enraptured by the immediacy of it all.

Those formative years would ultimately shape the rest of his life, launching his award-winning, 52-year career in broadcast journalism, explained Scott, who was inducted into the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame by the Press Club of Long Island last week, alongside Bryan Boyhan of The Express News Group, Joye Brown of Newsday, and Chris R. Vaccaro for the PCLI Wing of the Hall.

“It was a surprise. I was very honored. I had to give a little speech and I was nervous,” the 74-year-old said with a laugh from his home in Westhampton. “But it was very, very enjoyable. I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a long time. And it just feels like a culmination of a long career.”

After studying journalism at the University of Southern California and the New York Institute of Technology — where he later taught communications in the 1980s — Scott landed his first full-time job while touring a radio station based in Bermuda during his honeymoon with his wife, Vivian, in 1970.

“After the tour, I said, ‘Have you got any openings?’ And he said, ‘As a matter of fact, yes, we do. A guy just quit,’” Scott recalled. “I said I just happened to have a tape and a resume that I brought on my honeymoon, and he said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not necessary. We’ll just do a live audition.’”

On the spot, he wrote a quick, five-minute newscast, read it in one of the studios, and he was hired immediately — working as the chief TV and radio news anchor at ZBM-Channel 9 before moving back to New York and starting his Long Island chapter.

In 1972, he began working at WGBB/1240 AM in Freeport, and then as an anchor for WOR/9 and WPIX/11, and a Washington correspondent for Tribune Broadcasting. He predominately covered Capitol Hill and was sometimes assigned to the White House, and followed Jimmy Carter on the campaign trail.

“I remember a long time ago, a history of journalism professor once told me, ‘You know, you’re gonna have an armchair to history,’” he said with a groan. “And, my God, the guy was absolutely right. Because, you know, you’re right there on the cusp of events that make history. And that’s what’s rewarding, insightful, and also, it can bring tears to your eyes at times.”

March 30, 1981, started as a routine day for Scott, who was assigned to a stakeout at the Washington Hilton while President Ronald Reagan was giving a speech to 5,000 members of the AFL-CIO. The journalist was expecting to get a routine picture of the president waving to the crowd, before he and the horde of fellow reporters went on their way, when several shots rang out.

“We all piled on top of this scrawny looking, dirty looking kid. And we had no idea, at the time, the president had been hit,” Scott said. “But there were a couple of other people who were hit and were down and bleeding. It was just absolute bedlam.”

He ran across the street, fed a quarter to the payphone and called his bureau to let them know what had happened, he said, and reported from the White House over the next several days.

“I was in the White House briefing room when Al Haig said, ‘I’m in control here,’” Scott said, “and he sounded absolutely not in control.”

After four years in Washington, D.C., Scott returned to Long Island, where he was the founding news director for Melville’s WLNY/55, and eventually landed at News 12 Long Island in 1997 as a news anchor and reporter, helping pioneer local television news here as it exists today.

“It was a wonderful place for news because we were all very hungry to cover the next best story — and it was like a family,” he said. “We were very close. We all helped each other. We all rooted for each other. And we also felt a tremendous hunger for local news from the audience in Nassau and Suffolk.”

In his years as a Long Island journalist, Scott covered thousands of stories, among them major historical events, including the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the Son of Sam arraignment, the TWA Flight 800 crash, and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

“You see a city, a part of a city, in ruins, and you wonder how many thousands of people are dead after this terrible attack against America,” he said. “For days and days, I’m covering people looking for their loved ones and having these makeshift bulletin boards put up in the streets … It was, absolutely, just devastating to watch this pain.”

Reflecting on his career, Scott said his work in journalism has made him more curious and well-rounded, more sensitive toward people’s suffering, and, in some cases, more cynical. In September 2017, he announced his retirement from News 12 — just weeks after his 22-year-old granddaughter, Hallie Rae Ulrich, died from a heroin overdose.

Scott had a new purpose, and directed his full attention to combating the opioid crisis on the East End, serving as the co-chairman of the Southampton Town Opioid Addiction Task Force — which has since become the Addiction and Recovery/Behavioral Health Committee, where he is a member. In recent years, the number of overdose deaths had seen a dramatic decline, he said, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“It was just a firestorm of terrible events during the past two years — more than two years — and we lost a lot of ground and now we’re playing catch up,” he said. “This past year, more people experienced fatal overdoses than any other year in American history — and it’s very, very sad. There’s a lot to be said for this problem. It’s more than just fentanyl. It’s more than just heroin. It’s substance abuse.”

While visiting family in Vermont over the past two summers, Scott noticed the local coverage of the opioid addiction crisis by WCAX — a CBS affiliate in Burlington — and stopped by the station to commend the reporter, and meet with the news director and general manager, who offered him a job.

On April 23, Scott officially came out of retirement and started as the newest weekend anchor for WCAX, on air at 6 and 11 p.m. — or available to stream anytime on the station’s app.

“Just let the people of Long Island know I’m not abandoning them,” he said. “I’m just expanding my work a little bit and I still love Long Island — I’m still a Long Islander. I’m a firm believer that if you retire and stop, life will stop. And I just want to keep going as long as I can.”