Scott Friedman is NBC 5's Senior Investigative Reporter leading the "NBC 5 Investigates" team, exposing critical safety concerns, and holding officials accountable.
Scott’s investigative reporting has been recognized with broadcasting’s top national honors including the duPont-Columbia Award - the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize - a Peabody Award, five national Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Award, two national SPJ Sigma Delta Chi Awards and a national News and Documentary Emmy for outstanding regional investigative report. Scott's investigations have also been featured on NBC Nightly News and TODAY on NBC.
Scott’s Peabody Award-winning investigation offinancial troubles at Dallas County Schools (DCS) exposed a web of corruption, staggering financial mismanagement, hidden personal relationships and conflicts of interest inside an agency that transported tens of thousands of children to school each day. The Texas Legislature, governor and voters acted swiftly to close DCS and the superintendent who ran the agency pleaded guilty to federal charges for accepting $ 3 million of bribes and kickbacks in exchange for government contracts. The NBC5 reports also sparked an FBI public corruption investigation which led to the conviction of the second-highest-ranking elected official in the City of Dallas.
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In 2023, Scott received the prestigious Alfred I. du-Pont-Columbia Award for his series “Paper Tag Nation” which exposed how criminals were able to infiltrate the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles registration system in order to sell vast numbers of fraudulent temporary license plates illegally. The series revealed how those fraudulent paper plates were often used by criminal organizations looking to create “ghost cars” used in cross-border smuggling, human trafficking, and the commission of violent crimes. NBC5’s reporting helped spark leadership changes at the Texas DMV, legislative action to change the temporary tag system, and a new system for car dealer licensing background checks.
For more than a year, Scott’s teaminvestigated care for injured, active-duty U.S. Army soldiers, in partnership with The Dallas Morning News. The series uncovered hundreds of complaints from injured troops describing mistreatment, harassment, verbal abuse and a lack of care from commanders of U.S. Army Warrior Transition Units (WTUs). Within days of the station’s first reports, the U.S. Army ordered new training for commanders of all 25 WTUs worldwide, aimed at better treating injured troops with dignity and respect. The U.S. House Armed Services Committee also ordered a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation.
Scott’s nine-month-long investigation ofcrashes and injuries caused by police officers using dashboard-mounted computerswhile driving led to changes in local police department policies and became training material for law enforcement agencies nationwide.
Scott joined KXAS-TV in 2006 reporting, later anchoring the station’s weekday morning newscast, NBC 5 Today. In 2012, he helped launch “NBC 5 Investigates.”
Previously Scott was an investigative reporter and news anchor at WTMJ-TV (NBC) in Milwaukee and a reporter at WNDU-TV (NBC) in South Bend, Indiana. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.
