In the nineties, Connie Chung was one of the most well-known journalists in the world.
She made history as the second woman and first Asian person to ever anchor the nightly news
in the U.S., but, as quickly as she rose to the top, she all but disappeared.
"There was nobody who looked like me who was out there, so that's why I wanted to be Walter
Cronkite."
Chung was born in Maryland to immigrant Chinese parents.
As the youngest of ten children, she said her family found her decision to study the
then-budding field of TV journalism surprising.
She told NPR,
"For a small, diminutive-sized Chinese person who grew up in a very loud family and never
spoke up in her life, it was dramatic."
"I always wanted to be the son that my father never had, so I was going to make Chung memorable."
After graduating from the University of Maryland, Chung landed a job as a correspondent in Washington,
D.C. for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
It was there that she proved her knack for chasing the story.
She recalled an impromptu interview with President Richard Nixon during the height of the Watergate
scandal, telling Watch What Happens Live,
"I happened to be walking into the White House, and he's just standing there.
And he was keeping, he was underground.
He wouldn't say a word."
She went on the air that night with an exclusive scoop.
Chung eventually found a home at NBC in 1983, anchoring the morning show, NBC News at Sunrise.
She also anchored the Nightly News on Saturdays, and served as Tom Brokaw's substitute when
he couldn't make weeknight appearances.
As a young journalist, Chung's success came at the cost of being forced to face discrimination
from men in her industry.
In 2018, after the rise of the Me Too movement, Andy Cohen asked Chung if she had ever been
harassed during her career, and she said,
"Yeah, yeah.
Every day.
Well, let me say for the record that anybody who sexually harassed me is now dead."
That same year, Chung wrote a letter in solidarity with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford - the woman
who became a lightning rod during the confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme
Court.
Chung revealed that she was assaulted in college by the doctor that delivered her as a baby,
in 1946.
Her experiences informed her work and contributed to her desire to further prove herself as
a journalist.
After spending six years at NBC, Chung moved back to CBS.
At first, she headlined weekend coverage, anchoring the CBS Sunday Evening News and
Face to Face with Connie Chung on Saturdays.
Then, in 1993, she was promoted to co-anchor of the CBS Evening News, sharing the spot
with Dan Rather.
The decision to have two co-anchors was immediately criticized, even by Chung, according to NPR.
"Hey, folks, it's live television."
"That's right."
Though she did land several interviews that were praised by critics, such as her conversation
with Bill Gates as Microsoft began to take over the world, and then Magic Johnson following
his HIV diagnosis, it was not long before her work came under fire for both its format
and content.
Both Chung and CBS were criticized for what The Baltimore Sun described as embracing the,
quote, "mindless celebration of celebrity."
Interviews with disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding and with Faye Resnick, who made headlines
at the time for her friendship with O.J.
Simpson's murdered wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, drew big ratings, as well as backlash.
But Chung anchored two now-infamous interviews that damaged her career beyond repair.
In January 1995, Chung interviewed Kathleen Gingrich, mother of then-Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich.
Not getting much out of her interviewee, Chung asked Kathleen what her son thought of first
lady Hillary Clinton, and said Kathleen could simply whisper the scandalous answer.
So, she did.
"And I can't tell ya what he said about Hillary."
"Why don't you just whisper it to me, just between you and me?"
"She's a b----."
Kathleen claimed she didn't know she was being recorded, which Chung claimed was a lie.
In either case, Chung was heavily criticized for what many perceived as journalistic malpractice.
Months later, an interview Chung conducted following the Oklahoma City Bombing effectively
ended her career at CBS.
Speaking with a member of the Oklahoma City fire department, Chung asked:
"Can the Oklahoma City Fire Department handle this?"
Her tone was widely perceived as sarcastic.
Letters and calls poured in from around the country, and even Dan Rather, reportedly complained.
A month later, Chung was out at CBS.
In the decade following her exit from CBS, Chung bounced around between networks, spending
three years with ABC before getting her own show, Connie Chung Tonight, on CNN.
Having received poor ratings, the show lasted only a year before being canceled in 2003.
By 2006, Chung was co-hosting Weekends with Maury and Connie alongside her husband, Maury
Povich.
The couple had adopted their son together in 1995.
Today, Chung is all but retired.
Though she still appears occasionally on TV panels and in interviews, she has not anchored
a show since 2006.
That said, she continues to speak out about bringing change to the news industry, and
specifically, TV news.
She told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019,
"I don't believe women should be intimidated by the threat of losing their jobs.
I think there needs to be a better cleansing of all the news organizations.
The attitudes still have to change to some level of parity between men and women."
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