Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, presented the key to New York City to Jewish broadcaster Marvin Scott, whom he called “a giant of news and journalism,” on Friday.
“He’s just a perfect New Yorker, I would like to say,” Adams said. “Sense of humor, dedicated, committed, a man whose voice has echoed across the five boroughs and across the globe for generations.”
A member of the New York State Broadcaster Hall of Fame and the Bronx Jewish Hall of Fame, Scott is a 14-time Emmy Award winner.
“A son of the Bronx,” Scott “started his love of the news at a young age with just his camera, his wits and determination,” Adams said. “He chased stories across the city, selling his first news photo of a raging fire to New York Daily News at the tender age of 14.”
“For six decades, Marvin has shown a light on what is happening in our streets, across our nation and across the globe,” the mayor said. “And he has done it with courage, integrity and a dedication to the truth.”
Scott has reported from the “front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan and Cambodia,” as well as on the “Civil Rights Movement, where he covered JFK and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” according to the mayor.
“From interviewing six U.S. presidents and global figures like Golda Meir to reporting on the U.S. space program in a three-mile nuclear disaster,” he said. “From covering every New York City mayor since John Lindsay, and he would clearly tell you that he covered them all, but I am his favorite.”
Scott said that “receiving this key to the city, the city where I was born, grew up, spent my entire career as a broadcast journalist and told some of the greatest stories of my life—it’s an extraordinary honor.”
