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David Schechter
American journalist (born 1971) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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David Merrill Schechter (born February 16, 1971) is an American journalist and CBS's National Climate Correspondent, reporting on the global risks of climate change. Schechter previously worked as a local news reporter in Dallas, Minneapolis, Dubuque, Youngstown, and Kansas City.
Schechter has won three Edward R. Murrow Awards[1] for documentary, three Scripps Howard National Journalism Awards,[2] the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Reporting,[3] as well as an Alfred duPont-Columbia University Award,[4] which is regarded as the broadcast version of a Pulitzer Prize.
He is a patented inventor for an intelligent news management platform and social network.[5]
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Early life and education
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David Schechter was born to Neal Schechter and Marilyn Schechter, née Levin. He and his sister Buffy were born into a Jewish family in West Bloomfield, Michigan. His parents owned and operated Camp Walden, a children's' summer camp in northern Michigan for much of Schechter's life. During the school year, his father worked as a physical education teacher and his mother as an artist. Schechter attended West Bloomfield High School.
In 1989, while still in high school, Schechter won a Columbia Scholastic Press Gold Circle Award[6] for a sports feature about CBS newscaster Pat O'Brien, called "At The Half: A Behind the Scenes Look at Pat O'Brien." The piece went on to be featured in the Detroit Pistons in-house magazine as well as the NBA league magazine, Hoop.
Over the years, O'Brien would become a mentor to Schechter. After reading the piece by Schechter, O'Brien would send a note in April of 1989 reading "if you keep writing like that, not only will you be working for At The Half...you'll be hosting the thing! See you during the playoffs." The two would become friends in the years to come.
Schechter attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity and worked as a sports reporter for the Michigan Daily student newspaper. In 1993 he graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Communication.
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Career
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Local news (1993–2022)
Immediately after college, Schechter started his career in Dubuque, Iowa in 1993 as a Primary Anchor at KDUB-TV, a now-closed local television station.
After two years in Iowa, Schechter transitioned to WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio in 1995.
Soon after, Schechter moved to WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri in 1996.[7] In Missouri, Schechter worked as a Special Projects Reporter until 1999.
Schechter's next stop was as an Investigative Reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1999-2006. In Minneapolis, Schechter dug deep into investigative reporting with an emphasis on equality with stories like "Access Denied," where he investigated discrimination on the basis of race using hidden cameras at a local club.[8] At WCCO, Schechter created The Last Flagraiser with photojournalist Thomas Aviles, a 2003 regional-Emmy-winning, documentary length piece following the last living service member from the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima in World War Two.[9] It was for this documentary that Schechter won his first Edward R. Murrow Award.[10]
WFAA
Finally, Schechter landed at WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, where he stayed from 2006 to 2022. As a senior reporter, Schechter spent his first ten years at WFAA covering typical local news. In 2015, Schechter gained recognition for his documentary following the 2013 West Fertilizer Company Explosion; the news documentary, titled Rise Up, West: Recovery Starts on the 50-Yard Line, won Schechter his second Murrow Award.[11]
It was in 2016 that Schechter and his partner Chance Horner developed Verify Road Trip, a cutting-edge show in which Schechter would bring a skeptical viewer along with him on a road trip to challenge their previously held beliefs.[12] In 2020, he won his third Murrow Award for "Borderlands" after bringing a conservative viewer to the Texas-Mexico border to examine the implications of expanding the border wall.[13]
In 2020 and 2021, Schechter ran "Banking Below 30," an investigative series that exposed systemic racism entrenched in the banking industry, focusing on racial redlining in Dallas.[14] In a congressional hearing, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated the series "shows we need real vigilance in making sure that banks honor their obligations to serve minority communities, low- and moderate-income communities, within their operating areas."[15] And that "that [story] got our attention. We can't talk about individual institutions of course, but we take this very seriously."[15]
Climate coverage
It was with Verify Road Trip that Schechter began covering climate change, realizing the pattern's threat and need for additional news coverage from a local level.[16] In 2020, Schechter and his partner, Chance Horner, released "Verify Road Trip: Climate Truth," an hour-long piece where they took a climate-change skeptic on the road to challenge his beliefs, from Texas to Alaska. The piece earned Schechter a 2020 Scripps Howard Award[17] and a 2021 duPont-Columbia Award,[18][19] widely accepted as the broadcast equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize.
Schechter left WFAA in July of 2022 after 16 years at the station.[20]
CBS News (2022–present)
In August of 2022, Schechter announced that he was taking a job at CBS News as a member of their new Innovation Lab, a branch of the business intended to experiment with next-generation storytelling.[21][22] As the National Climate Correspondent for CBS, Schechter runs segments on climate change in local markets around the country. He started with his show On the Dot with David Schechter, and his work has since transitioned to the CBS Evening News segment Eye on America, CBS Mornings, and CBS Saturday Morning.[23][24][25] Schechter debuted the first episode in January of 2023.[26] His pieces have covered forest fires; the effects of light pollution; sea-level rise; climate-change anxiety; university climate divestment; the effects of greenhouse gasses; climate-related extinction, specifically of the Yarrow's spiny lizard;[27] and more.
In December of 2023, Schechter capped off CBS's weeklong docu-series "Warming Signs" with an hour-long piece in which he visited Svalbard, Norway, the fastest-warming area on planet earth.[28]
In 2023, Schechter co-founded the CBS E-Team, where he trains local reporters, meteorologists, and news managers on better ways to locally cover climate change.[29][30]
In September 2024, Schechter became CBS's main climate correspondent after the network revamped their climate team. Soon after, Schechter began taking part in more live appearances on CBS network news under CBS's Climate Watch.[31] His work as the network's climate correspondent has garnered him frequent spots on the CBS Evening News.
Trump Administration Reporting
After the second election of United States President Donald J. Trump, Schechter's work took on a new flavor as the new president took aim at federal climate and environmental programs. Many of Schechter's post-January 2025 segments cover funding cuts to climate efforts, using personal stories to add a human element to a opaque political issues like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program and logging on federal lands.[32] Since Trump's November 2024 election, Schechter and his team "have produced 61 climate stories, 16 that ran on the evening or morning news broadcasts before also streaming, 24 that went directly to streaming, and 22 that were published as digital text stories" on issues from NOAA funding cuts to the 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires.[33] When asked by The Nation about his team's efforts to illuminate political climate issues in the Trump era, Schechter responded "if you look at the 60-plus stories we’ve done, it’d be pretty hard to say that someone is trying to keep us quiet.”[33]
Schechter also writes broadly circulated opinion pieces on the how local journalists can better cover climate change.[34][35]
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Personal life
Schechter lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife Janet and son Henry. He is an Ethics Fellow at the Poynter Institute.[36]
Awards
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References
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