Forget reporter Ted. Call him Pastor Ted now.
Ted Chen, a familiar face on NBC4 News in Los Angeles since 1995, signed off for the last time Wednesday evening before setting off on a new path as a Christian minister.
“Many of you know I’ve been in seminary for the last several years,” he said, sitting with co-anchors Colleen Williams and Michael Brownlee after watching a video tribute to his time in front of the camera. “I got my master’s in Christian studies, and right now I’m pursuing my doctorate, my doctorate of ministry. And so, yeah, I’ll be graduating to full-time ministry beginning tomorrow.”
Even so, after 30-plus years in high gear, he might need a minute. But Chen said he’s looking forward to “a little slower pace and a chance to dig deeper” moving forward — that and not having to tell his wife he has to rush off on short notice for work.
“I’m gonna miss it, definitely,” he said. “I tell people, there’s an adrenaline shot to this, to being part of this business. There’s a serious, heavy responsibility that I took over the years.”
Chen’s career took him from Reno to Fresno to San Diego over those years and finally to L.A., where his favorite assignment wound up being the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
“It was China’s first Olympics and I remember how proud my parents were. … They were just so excited,” he said. “And it was just so meaningful to see that moment for China, and to go into the countryside and cover the plight of farmers.”
Chen also enjoyed all the awards shows he worked — hey, who says a reporter has to have gravitas all the time? — and said that “as a Trekkie,” his favorite celebrity interview was with the actor Leonard Nimoy.
“I normally don’t get starstruck,” Chen said, “but — him. Mr. Spock.” Whoo-ee.
In the goodbye video, Hetty Chang, NBC4’s Orange County reporter, remembered the moment she realized Chen was something special to the people of Los Angeles.
“When I first rode in the Golden Dragon Chinese New Year parade with him, I looked at him and thought, ‘Are you moonlighting as a movie star?’ ” she said. “Because people were stopping our car, our little float, and [they were saying things] like, ‘Stop the car! I want to take a picture with Ted Chen!’ ”
Chen’s wife, Ariell, wrote “I’M SO PROUD OF YOU” in an Instagram story on Thursday urging followers to watch his on-air send-off. The two met each other cross-country through a matchmaker after she, then Ariell Kirylo, had moved away from the L.A. area. They found they shared a “spiritual home” — Vintage Church in Santa Monica.
“That was certainly an interesting twist,” she told California Wedding Day, “to know we were in each other’s vicinity all along, but it took me moving to D.C. to call a matchmaker based out of Florida to meet a man at my church in L.A.! And they say dating in L.A. is hard.”
The veteran reporter elicited major respect from the people he worked with, all the way up to Marina Perelman, vice president of news for NBC4. “Ted’s career path has always been grounded in service and purpose. Over his 30 years with NBC4, he has covered remarkable stories and contributed to what he has often called the best newsroom in town. He is one of the people who truly make it that way,” she said Thursday in a statement.
“From his annual tradition of bringing cookies to the assignment desk to the kindness, compassion, and grace he shows every colleague and every person he meets, Ted embodies the very best of our newsroom culture.”
Chen put things in perspective himself on his final day in the newsroom, borrowing a page from all those athletes he’d seen over the years and telling Brownlee and Williams after all their kind words, “I’ll take the encouragement — and give God all the glory.”