Arnold Diaz, who reported on the New York scammers, dies at the age of 74

Arnold Diaz, a brash investigative journalist at three New York City television stations who brought righteous passion to segments that shamed con artists, entrepreneurs, swindlers, government bureaucrats and others who defrauded consumers, died Oct. 24 in Greenwich, Conn. was 74.

The cause of death at a hospital was multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, his son Alex said.

Mr. Diaz not only wanted to solve the victims’ problems, but also to shame the wrongdoers for their misdeeds. He confronted them, chased them and shoved microphones in their faces looking for answers.

At WCBS, Channel 2, where he spent more than twenty years, his “Shame on You” investigations were introduced with a short animation featuring a jingle and a hand with a wagging index finger. When the segment moved to WNYW, Channel 5, it was renamed “Shame, Shame, Shame”; later, on WPIX, Channel 11, it was called “What a Shame!”

“I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a dream job, standing up for the little guy and sticking up for the bad guys,” Mr. Diaz said. said last year on Channel 11 when he retired. He added that his reports “gave voice to the victims whose complaints were too often ignored – complaints about lousy landlords, greedy corporations and incompetent government agencies.”

A typical report, from the early 1990s, spoke to people who had purchased credit card-activated fax machines for $5,500 or more and were told in a TV commercial that they would make a quick profit after hitting high-traffic locations such as airports were placed. for public use.

In the segment, the camera focused on the losses of consumers, the amounts circled in red on their checks. Mr. Diaz held the paperwork showing who purchased the machines; he said “Shame” had called 34 people on the list, and none had received the equipment. He tracked the company, Distribution International, to a “boiler room” operation in a basement in Forest Hills, Queens, where his questions to Sheri Cohen, the company’s president, went unanswered as he followed her around the office.

When she told Mr. Diaz that some fax machines had been installed, he asked where, but she refused to answer. And Ms. Cohen, like hundreds of others who confronted Mr. Diaz over the years, was inducted into what Mr. Diaz called his Hall of Shame.

In early 1993 she was charged with wire fraud by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District in Brooklyn — who Mr. Diaz credited “Shame on You” with alerting the office to the case — and was convicted a year later. She was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

Around the time that report appeared, Walter Goodman, a television critic for The New York Times, praised a series of investigations by Mr. Diaz.

“Anyone who has ever been insulted by an auto repair shop,” Mr. Goodman wrote in 1990, “or ended up with an over-the-hill chicken or been annoyed by the city bureaucracy can shout amen about these mini-exposés, which won two New York Emmy Award nominations last month.

He ended the review: “Hail! Hail! Hail! Hail to you, Arnold Diaz!

Mr. Diaz acknowledged in a 2022 interview with Newsday that he did not invent the aggressive brand of consumer research that became his hallmark. But, he said, he was proud of how he adapted it for a New York audience.

“New Yorkers love revenge,” he said, “and even if I didn’t solve their problems, I loved that we exposed the wrongdoers.”

His reporting led to some angry encounters, Alex Diaz said in a telephone interview: People spat and cursed at him. In one instance, he recalled, a Manhattan jeweler he was investigating for having too little gold menacingly placed a gun on the table in front of Mr. Diaz.

By his count, Mr. Diaz won 48 New York Emmy Awards — so many, his son said, that he borrowed some to decorate houses for use in the backgrounds of TV shows.

Arnold Theodore Diaz was born on June 16, 1949 in Brooklyn and moved with his family to North Miami Beach, Florida, when he was five. His Cuban-American father, Leonard, was an aircraft mechanic. His mother, Florette (Cohen) Diaz, was a police secretary.

Mr. Diaz graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in communications and media studies in 1971 and received a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University the following year. He soon joined WPLG in Miami and in 1973 moved to WCBS, where he remained for 22 years.

Ann Sorkowitz, a producer who started working with Mr. Diaz at WCBS in 1976, said he distinguished himself through breaking news and long-term investigations, such as an investigation into toxic dumping in New Jersey. His investigations generated viewer mail, including consumer complaints. The ‘Shame on You’ reports began in the late 1980s.

“Arnold decided to call it ‘Shame on You’ because of the old-fashioned idea that people who behave badly are publicly shamed,” Ms. Sorkowitz said in a telephone interview. “The segments empowered people. They got their problems resolved or their money back and vented their frustrations.”

Mr. Diaz left local television in 1996 for a network job as a consumer research correspondent for ABC’s “20/20.” “I was interested in bringing out that sense of outraged journalism.” Victor Neufeld, the program’s former executive producer said by phone. “He was the perfect local news person. He was very animated and energetic, a crusader.

But the pace of a network news magazine, where it took months for a report to hit the airwaves, “wasn’t his style,” Mr. Neufeld said.

When Mr. Diaz returned to Channel 2 in early 2003, he told The Daily News from New York, “When you’re on local television, you think, ‘Oh, if only I could get into the networks.’ I have been there. I’ve been to the mountain top and the view is no better. Sometimes it’s even worse.”

His return to Channel 2 lasted two years. He then moved to Channel 5, where he remained until 2014, and to Channel 11, where he stayed for eight years before retiring.

Alex Diaz attributed his father’s passionate style to his Cuban background and to his upbringing, at least early on, in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood.

“I was fascinated by the fact that he used the power of shame as a weapon or a shield,” said the younger Mr. Diaz, who has the word “shame” tattooed on his stomach. “Shame is a call to introspection. It was less passing judgment than saying, “You know what you’re doing is wrong. Be a better version of yourself. ”

In addition to his son, Mr. Diaz is survived by his wife, Shawn Callaghan-Diaz, whom Mr. Diaz met when she was a set decorator for soap operas and “Captain Kangaroo” at CBS; his daughters, Shayna Wade and Casey Diaz; a sister, Susan Enslein; and two grandsons.

As Mr. Diaz retired, he reflected on his reports, including one in which an insurer said he would not pay for a Staten Island man’s prosthetic leg. because there was no evidence that he wanted to walk. His report prompted the company to review and approve the man’s claim.

“I am leaving with no regrets,” Mr. Diaz said. “I may miss the excitement, but not the times I was pushed, spat on and threatened with weapons.”