Friday afternoon, 42-year-old James Kang who worked in technical operations at KCBS/KCAL in Los Angeles left work complaining of a headache. He was found dead in his car in the station’s parking structure sometime later. Kang’s death was reported on both of the duopoly’s ate local newscasts Friday night.
All weekend, colleagues — current and former — have been sharing their memories of Kang on the CBS O&O website and other memorial sites, including this one written by a friend, Paul Skolnick.
He also became a social-media beacon for many newsies taking their first stab at new platforms. He often engaged KCBS anchor Pat Harvey on Twitter, helping to draw out and add an online dimension to one of the great personalities in TV news today. As Suraya Fadel, a KCBS/KCAL reporter, found her social-media voice and became one of the great Los Angeles reporters to use Twitter, James gave her the nickname #TwitterPrincess, which is now widespread.
Former KCBS/KCAL anchor Suzanna Rico writes about Kang on her blog:
James and I worked together on the KCBS morning show for several years, and each time I walked in the security doors in the pre-dawn hours, exhausted and sometimes grumpy, James would greet me as if I was the most special person in the world. James always remembered my birthday–although I never remembered his. But that didn’t matter. James was a giving, not a receiving, kind of guy.