Tom Scott wrote and illustrated a weekly column on politics for The Listener for over a decade in the 1970s and early 1980s. Since 1988 he has been the editorial cartoonist for Wellington's Evening Post and its successor, The Dominion Post.

A life member of the Press Gallery, he has observed at point-blank range prime ministers from Norman Kirk to John Key. He was famously banned from China by Rob Muldoon. He has been 'a boy on the bus' with David Lange, Mike Moore, Jim Bolger and Helen Clark.

He was a close friend of Ed Hillary, and his television drama series and documentary on Hillary have sold to a number of countries. Footrot Flats, which he co-wrote with Murray Ball, and his stage play The Daylight Atheist were hits on both sides of the Tasman.