By Rick Cherok
Scott Swan, the anchor for WTHR 13News in Indianapolis, has been recognized with many awards and distinctions throughout his broadcasting career, but his career journey has not always been marked by accolades. For many years, Swan struggled with anxiety issues that threatened both his work and his relationship with God.
Swan grew up in southern California and became a Christian at the age of twelve while attending summer camp. At fourteen, Swan was convinced he wanted to go into television news broadcasting, leading to his enrolled in Pepperdine University’s broadcast journalism program. At Pepperdine, Swan became the voice of the Pepperdine Waves basketball team and graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1985.
While still in college, Swan began to experience unexplained panic attacks. The first attack, Swan recalls, occurred while he was in a theater. Though he prayed for God to remove the anxiety attacks, they continued over the next ten years as he relocated to broadcast jobs in Palm Springs, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. “Viewers couldn’t see the attacks,” according to Swan, “but they were very real inside.”
As the anxiety attacks continued, Swan lost his desire to pray and said he started giving up on God. “I had forgotten God’s promise to seek him and he will let you find him,” said Swan. Amid the turmoil of his recurring panic attacks and his diminishing faith, Swan quit his job and moved back to southern California, but was fortunate to get involved with a men’s Bible study. “My faith was shipwrecked,” notes Swan, “but God brought me back.”
Swan went on to take a position with WTHR 13News, the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, and his panic attacks subsided. But in 2017, he began to feel intense stomach pains that were the result of a rare, and as yet undiagnosed, autoimmune disease. After one of his newscasts, the pain forced Swan to check into a nearby emergency room, where he was found to have a dangerously low blood pressure and internal bleeding from an artery around his stomach area. Due to the severity of the condition, Swan was rushed to St. Vincent Hospital where a vascular surgeon prepared for surgery. Before the surgery was performed, however, the deadly bleeding stopped for no apparent reason.
Having been healed from his severe panic attacks and the internal bleeding that could have taken his life, Swan’s faith became stronger than ever. Not only did he want to talk to others about God’s glory; he also began to write a daily devotional through which he sought to bring hope into people’s lives. “There’s hope in Jesus Christ,” Swan explains. “The things of this world let us down, but Jesus doesn’t.” Swan’s daily devotionals were initially designed to be brief thirty-second reads that would remind us of who God is and the promises of Scripture. Though initially meant only for social media, Swan later published his devotional messages in a 2024 book called The Hope You Need Today.
Amid his ongoing broadcast duties, Swan regularly speaks to churches and other groups where he can share his story and the hope of Jesus Christ. Moreover, he continues to write brief devotional messages, saying “These devotionals are very powerful and helpful to my daily walk.”
Swan is married to Janae’. They have three children and seven grandchildren.
Rick Cherok serves as Managing Editor of Christian Standard, Executive Director of Celtic Christian Mission, and Director of Men’s Services at Kentucky Christian University.
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