Signing off.
New York PIX11 information icon Kaity Tong introduced her retirement on Tuesday evening, closing out an illustrious, award-filled profession that spanned over six many years.
The Emmy-winning broadcast journalist, who has been with PIX11 since 1992, will anchor her last present on Aug. 30, the station introduced.
“Journalist, anchor, icon, legend, buddy, mentor. A couple of of the phrases that describe our beloved Kaity Tong,” PIX11 Managing Editor Patrick Mason stated, based on the outlet.
“After greater than 34 years at WPIX, Kaity has opted to maneuver right into a much-deserved retirement on the finish of August. You’ll be hard-pressed to seek out anybody within the New York Metropolis space who doesn’t instantly affiliate PIX11 with Kaity. A powerhouse title in an business that may change in a New York minute.”
Born in China earlier than transferring to the US at 4 years previous, Tong says she by no means needed to be an on-air reporter, by chance stepping into the business whereas she was a doctoral candidate at Stanford College.
“I by no means aspired to be a broadcast journalist. No, I needed to be a university professor,” Tong stated throughout her induction into the New York State Broadcasters Affiliation Corridor of Fame in October 2025.
Following within the footsteps of her mom and uncle, each acclaimed journalists, Tong secured a summer time place as morning editor and producer for San Francisco’s KCBS All-Information Radio within the Nineteen Seventies.
The seasonal job was a year-long employment on the station as she pushed apart graduate work, by no means ending her doctoral dissertation in Chinese language and Japanese research, based on her on-line biography.
Tong shortly moved into tv reporting, becoming a member of San Francisco’s KPIX-TV as a author earlier than being was a reporter “on the spot” in 1976.
Following a stint at Sacramento’s KCRA, Tong moved to New York, the place she grew to become a correspondent and weekend co-anchor for WABC in 1981.
Tong was named co-anchor for five p.m. and 11 p.m. broadcasts simply two years into her tenure on the station.
In 1991, Tong departed WABC and joined WPIX, the place she has been since, beginning as the highest feminine anchor and the weekday 10 p.m. information present.
Tong later moved to weekend protection, the place she has been, anchoring the 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. broadcasts.
She has been acknowledged all through her profession, incomes awards and honors for her work in each metropolis she lived in.
Alongside together with her latest NYSBA Corridor of Fame induction, Tong has received a number of Emmy Awards, together with for Excellent Occasion Protection for the 2003 “9/11 America Remembers.”
She was named the 2008 Greatest Newscaster in Native Tv Information by New York Press Journal, obtained the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1992 and the New York Ladies’s Agenda Star Award in 1993.
In 2023, Tong revealed she had been identified with Stage 1 lung most cancers.
She underwent surgical procedure to take away the tumor at Memorial Sloan Kettering and was declared “cancer-free” she stated on the time.
Married and divorced twice, Tong shares her son, Phillip, together with her ex-husband, Richard Lengthy.
