Connie Chung’s career began with this appearance: “I walked into a local TV station and said, ‘I can learn. I have no experience, but I can do this job.’ … You know what happens when you’re young and you don’t know anything? I just went ahead and did it like I knew what I was doing.”
And as she writes in her new memoir, “Connie,” due out Tuesday, nobody tried harder than Connie Chung.
She’s been reflecting on her four-decade career while enjoying the view from her Montana home with her husband of almost four decades, daytime TV legend Maury Povich.
Grand Central Publishing
Povich, a rising star in the newsroom at the time, recalled: “She wanted a job, and the news director said, ‘No, no, you’re my assistant.’ And she said, ‘No, I want the job — the weekend reporter on the newsdesk.’ And he said, ‘Well, you’ve got to replace yourself.’ She walked out of the newsroom, went into the bank across the street, saw the first female teller and said, ‘Do you want to be on TV?’ And he dragged her across the street into the newsroom. She got the job, and the bank teller got the secretary job.”
She soon caught the eye of CBS News, who stormed into the restaurant that had been cited for health violations with a camera crew. “The head of the CBS bureau was sitting there having lunch,” Chung says. “He saw me, gave me his business card, and said, ‘Give me a call.'”
In 1971, Chong developed a plan to survive in what she describes as a “man-filled” CBS News Washington bureau: “I looked around me and said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be a man,’ so I took on their characteristics. I was brave and I walked into a room like it was mine!”
And she could talk like a sailor: “I had a sleazy reputation for saying unexpected things to men who were quite sexist and racist. They’d say, ‘Whoa!’ But bad words? Not good. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It was just my way of surviving in that snake pit.”
White House photo courtesy of Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
For Chung, baby steps weren’t enough. When NBC wanted to hire someone to do the 30 minutes of news before the Today show, Chung said, “I’ll do that! But I also want to report on political news on Tom Brokaw’s Nightly News. And I want to do the Saturday Night News. And the 9 and 10 p.m. Newsbreak. It was keeping me up at night.”
Paulie asked, “You seem to be a powerful blend of Americanness and Chineseness. American, Chance, Chinese?”
“Loyal,” Chung said. “Always does the right thing. Good person. Respectful.”
“Ambition? Drive? Concentration?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Chong replied. “The drive to succeed. It was a combo platter.”
NBC News
In a highly competitive network battle, the prize was “The Get” an interview. In November 1991, Los Angeles Lakers great point guard Magic Johnson revealed he had tested positive for HIV. “I went into his agent’s office, squatted down there, and didn’t leave until he left the office,” Chung said. She won the interview.
She also conducted the first interview with the captain of the Exxon Valdez after the devastating Alaska oil spill.
But while the Tonya Harding skating scandal and provocatively titled documentary (Life in the Fat Lane) brought in ratings, tabloid smears tarnished her name and reputation.
“It was just one thing after another and I didn’t have the strength to say no,” Chung said. “Jane, I really regret it.”
CBS News
The daughter of “very traditional” Chinese immigrants, Connie was the youngest of five sisters and the only girl born in the U.S. Her father decided that she would be the son he never had and take the Chung surname.
She exceeded his expectations and achieved her dream, becoming co-anchor of the “CBS Evening News” with Dan Rather in 1993.
But it wasn’t a dream team. She recalled a line from the Bette Davis movie All About Eve: “She comes up the stairs and she says, ‘Fasten your seat belts. This is going to be an eventful night.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah! Good luck, honey!'”
Two years later, she was fired, a move she said left her “utterly devastated.”
But then, after years of miscarriages and fertility treatments, their adopted son was born just days later. “Matthew was adopted when he was less than a day old,” Chong says. “He never left my arms. He was an extension of me. And to this day, he’s grown into a man and is just amazing.”
At 49, Connie Chung has achieved almost everything, but she admits, “I can never declare success. I was born Chinese and I was born humbly. It’s never enough.”
It took her “Connie generation” to understand exactly who she had become, Povich said.
Last year, The New York Times ran a story called “Generation Connie,” about Chinese, Korean and Japanese parents across the country naming their baby daughters after Connie.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Chung said. “It was a much more exhilarating day than I could have ever imagined. They were the ones who declared me successful. And the moment they said that, I was like, really? I have to accept it.”
WEB EXTRA: Connie Chung talks about being a role model (YouTube video)
“What were you to their parents?” Paulie asked.
“Work hard, be courageous and take risks,” Chong said. “I wasn’t the smartest guy, I wasn’t the toughest guy, but I did those three things.”
Read excerpt: “Connie: A Memoir” by Connie Chung
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Story by Jay Kernis. Edited by Mike Levin.
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