Connie Chung is one of the most iconic figures in news history. The veteran journalist and news
anchor was a mainstay on TV for years, working for some of America's biggest networks. But since
then, Chung seems to have largely disappeared from television. So, what exactly happened to her?
Part of the reason that Connie Chung stepped back from television was so that she could raise
a family. After a miscarriage and multiple failed attempts at in vitro fertilization,
Chung and her husband, TV host Maury Povich adopted their son, Matthew,
in 1995. Chung was 48 years old at the time.
For the first couple years of motherhood, Chung stayed at home with her son before
returning to work for a few years when he was a toddler. A short time later,
she returned to being a stay-at-home mom. As she explained to Mamalode in 2011,
"I think teen or pre-teen years are the time to always be around.
I haven't worked in several years, so I've been able to keep an eye on Matthew!
I think it's important to know who his pals are and to know their parents."
Connie Chung has teased that there might be memoir in her future,
but, as of October 2020, there hasn't been any announcement for a book yet.
Instead of focusing on the private details of her life,
Chung said that her potential memoir would describe her Chinese-American family and
their experiences of coming to America and assimilating into American culture. Chung,
the youngest of ten children, was born shortly after her family arrived in America in 1945.
Transitioning from her high-profile jobs on television full-time motherhood must
have been a difficult change for Connie Chung. While she loves spending time with her family,
she admits that there are times she misses being on TV. In 2012 she told The Star,
"When the Arab Spring was breaking, I could not tear myself away from any of the coverage."
Chung added that the media has changed a lot since she first started her career and that
she is grateful to have missed out on the social media age. As she explained in the 2012 interview,
"The media is evolving and there is no resemblance to when I was in television news.
It will no longer ever be the same because
of the internet [...] the nature of how people receive their news has changed."
While she may no longer be ruling the airwaves, Connie Chung hasn't exactly retired. Instead,
she has turned her talents to a different form of journalism.
Years after she and her husband purchased a home in Montana,
they started a weekly print newspaper in their community called Flathead Beacon.
Chung isn't part of the day-to-day operations of the paper, but she and her husband are still
proud of what they have accomplished with it. And since 2007, the paper has been going strong.
In an interview with Parade, Povich had this to say about the Flathead Beacon,
"It has been honored as the best weekly newspaper and website in
the state. [...] We are very proud of the paper, especially in the climate in which
print journalism is trying to stay alive and finding new ways to exist."
When Connie Chung got her start in the industry, it was a very different time. Racial and gender
equality were still fairly recent changes in the American social structure. Chung landed her first
job in journalism in 1969, at the height of the women's movement that demanded equal rights for
women. The Equal Pay Act had only been passed six years earlier. The civil rights movement
had also made great changes in that decade, with the Civil Rights Act passing in 1964.
In spite of all the progress that has been made since then, Chung still thought that the industry
would be better for women and minorities by now. However, as she told NPR in 2011,
"It's not easy to break these habits and these male traditions. The cavemen are still in charge
at the networks [...] Forgive me, but they're all white males and you can't get away from that."
In 2018, Connie Chung returned to the news desk — sort of. She played
herself in a groundbreaking episode of the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat,
a show that focuses on a Chinese-American family. In the episode, Chung criticizes
the show's fictional local newscasters for not covering Lunar New Year. The episode was noted
for half of the dialogue being in Mandarin — something that rarely happens in American media.
In 2018, Connie Chung and her husband, Maury Povich, appeared on Megyn Kelly TODAY.
Kelly asked how the two have managed to stay together after more than 30 years,
and the couple bantered back and forth. During the interview, Chung joked to Kelly,
"I wish I were married to the guy who's on TV. He's so empathetic, he's so sweet."
Povich said that the real secret to their long-lasting relationship
is that they try to let go of their arguments. She might joke around, but Chung is clearly
devoted to her decades-long partner. In 2013, she surprised her husband by jumping out of a
cake during the taping of the 2,500th episode of his show, Maury. If that's not love, then what is?
Connie Chung was a trailblazer for women, and her success is proof of just how much women can do.
In spite of all that she has accomplished, however, she still thinks that women can't
have it all — at least, not all at once. As she explained to NPR,
"I would say to women who are trying to juggle it all, you can't really do it all
100 percent [...] You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to do everything."
She stressed the importance of equal partnerships, reminding women that there's no such thing as,
quote, "women's work" and that they don't have to bear the burden of household chores. Chung also
added that those in a committed partnership need to, quote, "share the duties" around the house.
Being off the air hasn't kept Connie Chung from weighing in on politics.
In 2016, she offered up her opinion on the then-presidential Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton. She said that Clinton was, quote,
"incredibly paranoid and cautious" when it came to the media. Chung told MSNBC that she
had previously covered Clinton when she was First Lady and had approached her at a political event.
Upon interacting with Clinton, Chung told the First Lady that she was quote,
"tracking her," meaning she was going to report on whatever Clinton was going to do next.
Chung then recalled Clinton's strong reaction:
"She looked at me as if I said I'm stalking you. So there's this..."
Chung went on to say that she thought Hillary Clinton did not trust the media.
She then added that the smartest politicians are the ones who know how to use the media
to their advantage, implying that Donald Trump was one such person.
Connie Chung expressed support for the Me Too movement in February 2018, commending NBC and
CBS for firing Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose after allegations of misconduct were made against the
two high profile men. Chung said that she had experienced harassment throughout her career,
but didn't open up about the extent of her experiences until later in the year.
In October 2018, Chung penned an open letter to Christine Blasey Ford in The Washington Post
after Ford accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh
of sexually assaulting her decades earlier at a party. Ford's claim was met with skepticism,
in part because of the length of time that had elapsed since the incident.
Chung said that she had been assaulted by her family doctor during a gynecological exam.
Like Ford, Chung remained silent for years, but wrote this in her open letter,
"We remember the truth forever. Bravo, Christine, for telling the truth."
Connie Chung has continued to speak out against misogyny, and she has specifically called out
the television industry and demanded change. In a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter
at The International Women's Media Foundation's 2019 Annual Courage in Journalism Awards,
she applauded the incredible advances that women have made in the news industry. She also condemned
the, quote, "all-male management" and the, quote, "old boys' network" that are still so dominant.
Chung said that, while #MeToo has led to some major changes and a new awareness at
news outlets like ABC, CBS, and Fox News, there's still a lot of work to be done.
Chung also encouraged victims of harassment in the TV news industry to come forward,
saying that women shouldn't fear that they will be fired if they report inappropriate behavior.
Connie Chung may be one of the biggest names in the news industry,
but she's quite down to earth. As she told Closer Weekly in 2019,
she and her husband, Maury Povich, don't take ourselves seriously.
This, said Chung, is a big contrast from their peers in television news whom she called, quote,
"ridiculous." Chung said that people in the TV news business have egos so large
that, quote, "you can't fit their heads in Madison Square G arden!"
Chung added that even seemingly normal people can change once they see themselves on TV.
Chung said that the fact that she and Povich aren't self-absorbed is one of the reasons
that their relationship has lasted so long. Another thing that keeps the romance going?
Povich's sense of humor. Chung has a funny streak herself,
joking that she doesn't like her husband most of the time but that she always loves him.
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