Kaity Tong reveals why she's retiring

Kaity Tong, the iconic New York anchor who held the job for 45 years at just two stations — not as easy as you might think — said she'll finally hang it up at the end of this month for the most human of reasons: "I'm tired," she said in an interview Wednesday.

Tong, 79, who anchors the 5 and 10 p.m. weekend newscasts at WPIX/11, where she's worked since 1992 following a decadelong run at WABC/7, will retire Aug. 30, the station announced internally Tuesday.

In a brief phone call, she said, "I've been doing this basically all my life — 50 years altogether — and it's time to do something else, just to relax, for goodness' sake."

Like most prominent people who spend a life in front of cameras, Tong's personal life, notably her health, has been part of this remarkable run too. After a bout of colitis in 2018, which resulted in the removal of her large intestine, she underwent grueling treatment for stage 1 lung cancer five years later, missing months of airtime. Longtime viewers, she said, noticed.

"I can't begin to say how much I appreciate the viewers and how much support they've given me through the ups and downs, and I have had some pretty dramatic events which I shared with them." The "colon thing" — as she refers to that first medical setback — is in the past, while the cancer is gone, "but I still have to get a scan once a year for the rest of my life."

Tong scoffs at the "icon" tag, but she can't shake the "pioneer" one. She was the first Asian American anchor of a New York evening newscast — WNET/13's Linda Shen was the first Asian American reporter — while only the third Ch. 7 female anchor, following Melba Tolliver and Rose Ann Scamardella. After joining Ch. 7 in 1981 as a reporter and weekend co-anchor following a reporter/anchor run in San Francisco and Sacramento that began in 1976, Tong was paired with the famously dyspeptic Tom Snyder at 11 p.m. The edge-softening move worked — the Tong-Snyder team was a hit, and by the summer of 1983 they were also co-anchoring the "The 5 O'Clock Eyewitness News." She later worked alongside Ernie Anastos, Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby. Like them, she became emblematic of New York TV news of the decade — energetic, ubiquitous, mostly personable and hugely popular.

Then, after she was swept out in 1991 by a station boss who wanted to cut costs and overhaul the format, something unprecedented happened: A coalition was formed demanding her reinstatement. It didn't work, but the public outcry did generate a lot of news coverage and embarrass Ch. 7, then led directly to a high-profile role at Ch. 11.

On Wednesday, Tong (who was a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University before becoming a radio reporter) called her long run "a happy accident because I've been very happy with everything I've done, or mostly happy. It is hard to articulate how I feel because a part of me says, 'Oh, maybe I am making a mistake,' but I don't think so. I am grateful and think of myself as going in and doing my job, and getting enjoyment out of it most of the time. Yes, we get preempted a lot on the weekend by sports, more and more, so it's not the same. But I'm just about 80. It's time."

She says she'll "spend more time in Japan and Tokyo, where my son [Philip Long] lives and works. He's half Chinese, half Welsh, and he's been interested in all things Japanese since he was 12. I'll spend more time traveling and doing more of what I already do — go to plays and eat out at great restaurants with my friends."

Ch. 11 hasn't yet named a replacement but it did release a statement Wednesday morning officially announcing her retirement, which began this way: "Journalist, anchor, icon, legend, friend, mentor. A few of the words that describe our beloved Kaity Tong ... ."