Sciutto attended St. Ignatius Loyola Elementary School and Regis High School in Manhattan. Sciutto is a 1992 graduate of Yale University, where he majored in Chinese history. Sciutto began his career in television as the moderator and the producer of the PBS program The Student Press, a weekly public affairs talk show aimed at college students. Sciutto was the Hong Kong correspondent for Asia Business News, and covered the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Sciutto also covered stories in China, Mongolia, Laos, Vietnam, Singapore, and South Korea. He joined ABC News in 1998, working in Chicago before moving to Washington, D.C. to cover the Pentagon. In 2006, Sciutto was named Senior Foreign Correspondent, ABC's lead reporter on foreign stories. Sciutto has traveled to and covered stories in 50 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, including more than a dozen assignments each in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. Sciutto was the only American journalist to embed with U.S. Special Forces during the Iraq invasion, to report from inside Myanmar during the government crackdown in the fall of 2007, and to file from inside Zimbabwe during the election crisis in April 2008.
