Kaity Tong Biography
Kaity Tong is a Chinese-born American broadcast journalist who has won an Emmy. Since 1981, she has worked as a television news anchor in New York City.
Kaity Tong Age
Tong is 74 years old as of 2021. She was born on 23 July 1947 in Qingdao, China.
Kaity Tong Height
Tong stands at a height of 5 feet and 6 inches (1.6m).
Kaity Tong Education
Kaity received an academic scholarship to Bryn Mawr College. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature with honors. She was accepted into Stanford University’s doctoral program in Chinese and Japanese literature, with plans to teach English literature. Tong, on the other hand, began her broadcasting career while still at Stanford, taking what she thought would be a summer job as a morning editor and producer for KPIX-TV All-News Radio in San Francisco. The summer job turned into a year-long stint at the radio station, which was San Francisco’s top all-news station. Tong finished her master’s degree in Asian studies but was sidetracked by the news industry.
Kaity Tong Family
Kaity moved to the United States with her family when she was four years old. Her parents’ names were anglicized to George and Anita Tong. She became a citizen of the United States in 1985. Her great-uncle, Hollington Tong, an ambassador to the United States from China as well as an acclaimed author, inspired her to become a journalist as she grew up in Washington, D.C. Her mother worked as a broadcaster and producer for Voice of America in Washington, D.C. She is also the 77th generation descendant of Confucius, the Chinese philosopher.
Kaity Tong Husband
Tong has a son, Philip Long, from her first marriage to Robert Long, who was a former news director and vice-president at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles until September 25, 2009. She later married photographer Patrick Callahan, with whom she later divorced.
Kaity Tong Awards
Tong joined Gloria Steinem and Beverly Sills in receiving The Women’s Project’s Exceptional Achievement Award. She was the first woman to be awarded the Rotary International Paul Harris Fellowship. The New York Women’s Agenda also presented her with a Star award. The Chinese America Arts Council has recognized her for her communication skills.
She was honored as a Distinguished Woman by the Chinese-American Planning Council and as a Champion of Excellence by the Organization of Chinese Americans. Tong, a naturalized citizen, was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for her efforts. Tong received the Governor’s Emmy Award in 2018 from the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences “for her four decades of presenting the news with integrity and compassion.” Tong has won several Emmys, including Outstanding Event Coverage for “9/11 America Remembers” in 2003 and Outstanding Single Newscast over 35 Minutes for “WB11 News at 10: 9/11 Day of Tribute” in 2004.
Kaity Tong Net Worth
Tong has an estimated net worth of $4.5 million.
Kaity Tong Career
Tong began her television career as a reporter for KPIX-TV in San Francisco from 1976 to 1979. Tong was hired as a writer for the station, but she was asked to do an on-air test and was quickly promoted to a street reporter, where her first on-air story was a report on the new carts that transported people around the airport. In December 1979, she was named co-anchor of the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts on KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, where she quickly rose to the top of the ratings among Sacramento’s television news personalities.
“Anchoring is fun,” she said at the time, referring to the difficulties of having a family and a career. She moved to WABC-TV in New York City in 1981. Within two years, she was co-anchoring the station’s 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts, first with Tom Snyder from 1983 to 1984, then with Ernie Anastos until 1986. After Roger Grimsby was fired in 1986, she moved to the 6 p.m. newscast, rotating the anchor chair with John Johnson alongside Bill Beutel, while continuing to co-anchor the 11 p.m. broadcast with Anastos until he left for WCBS in 1989.
As Beutel became the sole anchor of the 6 p.m. broadcast, she eventually became the sole anchor of the 11 p.m. news. In the 1984 feature film Moscow on the Hudson, she played herself, reporting on the defection of a Soviet circus performer played by Robin Williams. She has also appeared in Wolf, City Hall, Marci X, Night Falls on Manhattan, and the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate as a newscaster.
Her dismissal from WABC-TV in 1991 sparked widespread outrage. Susan Roesgen, who came from a small Midwestern station and never adjusted to New York, lasted only a year at WABC-TV. Tong’s Chinese-American ancestry, according to a “Coalition of Asian-American New Yorkers,” was the reason.
Other Tong supporters cited her age, which was over 40 at the time, as a major reason for her dismissal. Tong was fired by station management because of her high salary, which was $750,000 per year at the time (equivalent to $1,353,965 in 2017). According to Capital Cities/ABC chairman Thomas Murphy, the decision was “strictly a business decision.”
According to Tong, her direct boss, Channel 7 Vice President and General Manager Walter Liss, acknowledged that Tong’s 11 p.m. newscast had the highest ranking in that time slot, but he wanted “…a much bigger No. 1” and had a vision of how television should look in the 1990s. Tong joined WPIX as the station’s top female anchor in early 1992 and has been there ever since. From January 1992 to September 1992, she co-anchored the station’s 10 p.m. newscast with Marvin Scott, from September 1992 to October 1998, and from October 1998 to 2010, when Watkins was fired.
She has since become the station’s weekend anchor. Tong was involved in former news director Karen Scott’s lawsuit against WPIX for age discrimination when Scott and other veteran broadcast personnel lost their jobs in 2010, and later testified in court. Tong returned to weekdays in January 2016, co-anchoring a new 6:30 p.m. newscast with longtime WWOR anchor Brenda Blackmon. However, the newscast was canceled in September 2016, and Tong was relegated to weekends.
Other anchors include Forrest Sawyer, Joan Lunden, Joan Lunden, Cecily Tynan, Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Michael Strahan, Lara Spencer, Ginger Zee, David Muir, Amy Robach, Kendis Gibson, Diane Macedo, Janai Norman, Rob Nelson, Paula Faris, and Reena Ninan.