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 of financial 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 team investigated 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 of crashes and injuries caused by police officers using dashboard-mounted computers while 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.
The Latest
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Dallas police overtime costs topped $6 million for World Cup, records show
Through open records requests, NBC 5 Investigates obtained Dallas police overtime records showing that during the two World Cup months, the department spent a total of more than $14 million on overtime.
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Dallas Police spent over $6 million on overtime for World Cup
New records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates show Dallas police spent more than $6.5 million dollars on overtime during the FIFA World Cup and the recent Republican midterm convention. Now, the question is who will pick up the cost.
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Photo raises questions about Dallas trash truck AI cameras
Dallas Code Compliance said it has taken additional measures to protect privacy after NBC 5 Investigates questioned a photo that did not blur a license plate from the new AI cameras mounted on city trash trucks used to detect code violations on homes.
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Here's what the AI cameras on Dallas trash trucks can see
The camera contractor said its system automatically blurs license plates, but NBC 5 Investigates obtained an image the city said required manual redaction after a plate was missed.
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Dallas issues first citations tied to AI ‘blight score' cameras, records show
Dallas homeowners are now receiving the first citations stemming from possible code violations detected by the city’s AI-powered cameras and confirmed by humans, according to the city. The cameras, mounted on trash trucks, give homes “blight scores” to help inspectors identify and prioritize possible violations. Now, city records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates are raising new questions about whether the...
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Dallas issues first citations tied to AI code enforcement cameras
The city also sent thousands of notices to residents saying they might face future enforcement if violations are not corrected, but the city insists those notices are not “warnings.”
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NBC 5 Investigates: Dallas police department overtime
NBC 5 Senior Investigative reporter Scott Friedman sits down with NBC Now at 3 to talk about their investigation into overtime in the Dallas police department.
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NBC 5 Investigates: Could cutting Dallas Police overtime cost taxpayers more?
How much are some Dallas police officers making in overtime — and why could cutting those hours actually make the department’s budget problem worse? NBC 5 Senior Investigative Reporter Scott Friedman investigates how Dallas police overtime spending climbed over budget and what’s driving the costs.
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Could cutting Dallas Police overtime cost taxpayers more?
NBC 5 Investigates found that 40 officers each collected more than $100,000 in overtime last year, but reducing some of the department’s biggest overtime bills could cost the city grant funding it receives.
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Growing number of North Texas families are asking for help finding food
We’re learning more about just how many Texas families are losing federal food assistance. The Trump administration changed the rules for who is eligible for SNAP, the program formerly known as food stamps. Senior Investigative Reporter Scott Friedman has new numbers showing the impact on local families and why food banks are now under more pressure.
