For more than a decade, she was a correspondent for The New York Times and Reuters news service. Her work also has appeared in George magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, The New York Times Magazine, San Diego Union-Tribune, and Las Vegas Sun. She has appeared on Investigation Discovery's "Women Who Kill" and "Behind Mansion Walls" episodes, Oxygen network’s “Snapped” investigations, Unsolved Mysteries, CourtTV, CNN, MTV News, BET, VH1, and Uncovered TV. Her work has taken her to Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Panama, and most recently the Gulf Coast to cover the largest animal rescue in U.S. history, leaving her five-year job as a journalism instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to stay in the region. The result was the book Pawprints of Katrina with a foreword by actress and animal activist Ali MacGraw. Scott also blogs for Psychology Today. Ann Rule wrote about Scott, ""Cathy Scott is a star writer in the crowded field of true crime." 

She is a member of the Authors Guild, The Crime Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, the Society of Professional Journalist’s National Speakers Bureau, and the Julian Arts Guild. Scott, who has received more than a dozen awards from news organizations in California and Nevada, also served for 10 years as the Nevada chairwoman of the Society of Professional Journalist’s Sunshine Committee, which keeps open government to the public.