Grand Rapids Radio: Fired WOOD-TV ND Joins WCSG-FM

Stanton Tang

A former television news director who was fired for orchestrating a controversial, newsroom-wide memo earlier this year has resurfaced at a religious-oriented radio station, The Desk is reporting.

Stanton Tang joined WCSG 91.3 FM as their business development representative in October, four months after he was fired by Nexstar Media Group over the memo that urged reporters and other newsroom staff at WOOD-TV (Channel 8, NBC) to ease up on their coverage of gay pride events happening in the Grand Rapids area.

The leaked memo revealed Tang and his assistant news director, Amy Fox, as the masterminds behind the written edict.

“We should not cover every Pride event that we learn about,” Fox wrote in the memo at Tang’s directive, according to a copy obtained by The Desk. “We need to do some work to discern the newsworthy-ness of the event. If we are covering Pride events, we need to consider how to make the story balanced and get both sides of the issue.”

The memo drew a massive outcry from reporters and producers at WOOD-TV, who vowed to continue covering pride-related events in Grand Rapids despite the order from their bosses. The email also triggered an internal investigation by Nexstar Media Group, who determined the memo was a violation of corporate policy.

During the investigation, several current and former WOOD-TV staffers revealed numerous hostile incidents involving Tang during his tenure as the station’s news director. Some also accused him of incorporating his own personal beliefs — Tang identifies as a Christian and a conservative — into the station’s news coverage of social and political events.