Deborah Tang, who established BET's news division, dies at 60

By Richard Prince
Journal-isms
(December 28, 2007) Deborah C. Tang, who created Black Entertainment Television's news division and as vice president of news, entertainment and sports programming hired news anchor Ed Gordon, talk-show host Tavis Smiley and others who went on to become journalists around the country, died on Christmas Day of cancer at her Washington home, her sister, Marie Canada, told Journal-isms. She was 60.

[A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Jan. 12 at the Howard University Law School chapel on Van Ness Street in Washington. She is survived by three brothers, her sister and other relatives.]

"When you think of the kingmakers in this business, Deborah has to be on the short list for black talent," Gordon told Journal-isms on Friday. "She saw the talent in us and put us in the positions we're in. We wouldn't have gotten those positions" at other broadcast outlets, Gordon said, crediting Tang for his career and those of Smiley, talk-show host Bev Smith, onetime BET anchor Cheryl Martin, entertainment journalists who reported for "Screen Scene" and general-assignment reporters on "BET News."

Gordon, who was the news face of BET during much of the '90s, went on to MSNBC, National Public Radio and CBS' "60 Minutes" and now hosts the syndicated "Our World With Black Enterprise" for Black Enterprise magazine.

Smiley wrote in his 2006 autobiography, "What I Know for Sure," "My show on BET, in fairly short order, made me a household name in black America."

Tang left BET in 2000 after 14 years. At a network long criticized for its booty-shaking videos, Tang was said to believe in presenting balanced images of black people.

"If ever there was a fighter for news, it was Deborah Tang," Gordon said. Speaking of BET owner Robert L. Johnson, the anchor said, "She stood up to Bob and said, 'look, we have to have this.'" She also fought to give Gordon a decent salary, he said, telling him, "I had to get you so you could have more than one suit to wear on the air."

In a 1997 article in the late Emerge magazine, which was acquired by BET, Tang told Vanessa Williams Snyder, "The majority doesn't see us as doctors and lawyers who work hard everyday. We have to make sure that America sees there's another side."

She also believed African Americans should be well-informed. "I think we're at a point where information is crucial," she said. "If they come for us in the morning, it won't be because we didn't know. If we choose not to deal with it, then so be it," she said.

Tang, a Chicago native, came to BET through a nontraditional route.

Here is how Snyder described it in Emerge:

"She's been a concert promoter, a legislative aide and a United Airlines travel agent. She's also worked for a Fortune 500 company in sales and marketing.

"Tang grew up in Chicago and got a degree in education at Chicago State University — because that was the thing to do. Along the way, she also worked in community poverty programs. Eventually, she went to work for Johnson and Johnson Products in their sales and marketing department.

"During a visit to Dallas, she met a newly elected state legislator who was looking for an aide. She got the job. The trick was, she had to be ready to work in a week. She was, even though eventually it didn't work out: 'One of the top aides said I talked too fast, walked too fast, ate too fast to be from Texas. I came to work one day and I didn't have a job.'

"She decided to return to sales and marketing, unaware that a whole new career was just around the corner. She was interviewing for a marketing position at a local television station when Charlie Rose walked in. They chatted and she made an impression. 'He called me a couple of days later and offered me a job producing,' she says. 'I told him the only thing I knew about TV was how to turn it on and off.'

"She worked overtime learning the ins and outs of television, even spending time as Rose's secretary. 'I'm one of those people, if I have to learn from you and you come in at 7, I come in at 7. And once I learn what you know, I come in at 6 and stay until after you leave.'

"She was a natural, and after four months of grunt work she had her first on-air credit. 'I like the excitement of the constant change. My striving for it and loving it has come because it's fluid. Things are always changing.'

"She moved to Washington, D.C., with Rose's show in 1980. She later moved over to local TV stations," holding producing positions at WJLA-TV, WTTG-TV and WETA-TV from 1982 to 1986.

"'I've always done logistics and new start-up ventures. I'm very good at details and making trains run," she says.

"In 1986, Tang heard that BET Holdings, Inc. chairman Robert L. Johnson wanted her to call. He was looking for someone to start up his news programs. 'And if you need someone to start up a program, get it going, get it off the ground fast and get it in on budget, then I'm the person to call,' she says."

During Tang's tenure with BET, she created the weekly "BET News," the first black national cable news show, was instrumental in creating the network's overall news presence at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions in 1988, 1992 and 1996. She launched a daily talk show, "BET Talk," with Smiley as host. She said then that her dream was to have a nightly newscast.

The network also aired "Lead Story," a weekly roundtable featuring black journalists, "BET Tonight With Ed Gordon" and "Teen Summit," a weekly Los Angeles-based show in which teen-agers spoke frankly about such issues as drugs, AIDS, sex and social pressures and won six NAACP Image awards.

Many whites first became aware of BET after it aired Gordon's 1996 interview with O.J. Simpson after his acquittal in the criminal case then dubbed the "trial of the century."

Those news shows all ended in 2002 in a BET "restructuring," and news was reshaped into one-minute "news breaks," geared to shorter attention spans, and news specials. Last year, finding BET's commitment to news programming lacking, the National Association of Black Journalists awarded the network its "Thumbs Down" award.

After Tang left BET, she did volunteer work and worked with mentoring organizations and children, her sister said.


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