Who

A 30-year WNBC veteran, Scarborough is New York's longest-serving—and highest-paid—local news anchor.

Backstory

Pittsburgh native Charles Bishop Scarborough III worked as a reporter at local TV stations in Mississippi, Atlanta, and Boston before arriving at WNBC-New York in 1974 at the age of 30. He's been there ever since, covering the city's fires and murders over the course of five mayoral administrations—Beame, Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg—and winning 28 Emmys in the process. For years, Scarborough has been the host of the 11 o'clock broadcast with co-anchor Sue Simmons. That continues, although his other longtime gig at WNBC—co-hosting the six o'clock broadcast—came to an end in the summer of 2007, when WNBC revamped the evening schedule and he was named anchor of a new newscast at seven o'clock, New York Nightly News. Airing after Brian Williams' NBC Nightly News, the show is heavily focused on news rather than local news staples like sports and weather.

Keeping score

As of 2005, he was earning an estimated $3 million a year, more than any other local news personality—and about half-a-mil more than Sue.

In print

Scarborough has written three novels over the last three decades: Stryker (1978), The Myrmidon Project (1980), and Aftershock (1991). The reviews on Amazon.com are less than kind. According to one reviewer, "Scarborough is absolutely, completely, thoroughly, utterly incapable of any kind of characterization whatsoever."

Controversy

Scarborough suffered a credibility setback in the mid-'90s when he committed the no-no of making donations to local political candidates (all of them Republicans, incidentally). As a result, WNBC prohibited him from doing any original reporting on the 1996 Presidential campaign.

Personal

Chuck is married to his second wife, Ellen Ward Scarborough, an interior decorator and antiques dealer. (He was previously married to heiress Anne Ford.) The Scarboroughs live with their dog Oliver on Fifth Avenue and have homes in Connecticut and Southampton.(Their Hamptons cottage along Lake Agawam is named Swan Lawn.) Scarborough has two grown children: Chad, and Elizabeth, an anchor at KRPC in Houston.

Off hours

Scarborough enjoys flying—he's a licensed commercial pilot.