Connie Chung

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Connie Chung
Connie Chung, 2006-10-11
Born	August 20, 1946 (1946-08-20) (age 61) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Title	News Presenter, Reporter
Spouse	Maury Povich
Notable credit(s)

Constance Yu-Hwa Chung Povich (simplified Chinese: 宗毓华; traditional Chinese: 宗毓華; pinyin: Zōng Yùhuá; born August 20, 1946) is an Asian-American journalist who has been part of the cast of several USA television news networks.

1 Background
2 Career
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Background

The youngest of ten children (of whom she and four others survived ^[1]) of a high-ranking Republic of China diplomat from Taiwan, she was born and raised in Washington, D.C.^[2] She graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, and went on to receive a degree in journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1969. She has been married to talk show host Maury Povich since 1984. Chung converted to Judaism upon her marriage to Povich.^[3] Chung announced that she was reducing her workload in 1991 in the hopes of getting pregnant. Together, they have one son, Matthew Jay Povich, adopted on June 20, 1995.

[edit] Career

Chung’s network television career has spanned NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Chung was a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in the early 1970s, during the Watergate political scandal. Later, Chung left for the Los Angeles-owned and operated station of CBS, KNXT (now KCBS). She then moved to the nation’s second largest (and highest paying) local markets, southern California. Chung also anchored the CBS Newsbriefs for the west coast stations from the KNXT studios at Columbia Square during her tenure there.

She returned with great fanfare to network news as NBC created a new early program, NBC News at Sunrise, which was scheduled right before the popular Today program. Later, NBC created American Almanac, which she co-hosted with Roger Mudd, after Mudd left the NBC Nightly News, where he co-anchored for two years with Tom Brokaw.

Chung left NBC for CBS where she hosted Saturday Night with Connie Chung, and on June 1, 1993, she became the second woman (after Barbara Walters with ABC in 1976) to co-anchor a major network’s national news broadcast (with CBS; the solo national news anchor title goes to Sophie Thibault, with the French-Canadian network TVA in 2002, and in the United States, to Katie Couric at CBS.). While hosting the CBS Evening News, Chung also hosted a side project on CBS, Eye to Eye with Connie Chung. After her unsuccessful co-anchoring stint with Dan Rather ended in 1995, Chung jumped to ABC News where she co-hosted the Monday edition of 20/20 with Charles Gibson and began independent interviews, a field which would soon become her trademark.

Chung's interviews were largely gentle, but often they were punctuated by a rapid-fire barrage of sharp questions. Despite this, her interviews were still widely recognized as being decidedly softer than those of other interviewers, such as Barbara Walters or Mike Wallace. Consequently, her interviews were often used as a public relations move by those looking to overcome scandal or controversy. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and U.S. Representative Gary Condit.

[edit] Chinese spies controversy

She faced protest when, during a CBS broadcast (May 19, 1994; 6:30PM), Ms. Chung said:

"Every day, planeloads of Chinese citizens arrive legally in the United States, ordinary people. But to the Chinese government, some of them may be future spies, who a few years down the road, will be activated to steal American's military and technological secrets, whether they want to or not...ordinary Chinese students, scientists and businesspersons, who are in the US and have nothing to do with spying, can always be forced to be spies just by the Ministry of State Security's threatening: "Remember, we'll be watching your family members in China.""

[edit] Gingrich interview controversy

She also faced controversy when, in a 1995 interview with Kathleen Gingrich, mother of Republican politician Newt Gingrich, on Eye to Eye, Ms. Gingrich said she could not say what her son thought about First Lady Hillary Clinton on the air. Chung asked Ms. Gingrich to “just whisper it to me, just between you and me,” and Ms. Gingrich replied that her son thought of Clinton as a “bitch.” Many people interpreted Chung’s suggestion that if Ms. Gingrich would whisper this statement it would be promised that the statement would be off the record. When the statement aired, viewers^[who?] felt Chung had compromised her journalistic integrity.

[edit] Oklahoma City Bombing interview sinks anchor

A few months later, in the wake of the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Chung asked an Oklahoma City Fire Department spokesman, “Can the Oklahoma City Fire Department handle this?” Many viewers, particularly those in Oklahoma City, felt the question was insensitive to the situation. Thousands of viewers in Oklahoma and elsewhere called and wrote letters of protest over the tone of the questions. Moreover, co-anchor Dan Rather was irate that Chung was sent from New York to the assignment while he was already in nearby Texas. Consequently, after public outcry, and Rather's complaints, Chung was laid off as co-anchor of the CBS Evening News and was offered a demotion to weekend anchor or morning anchor.

[edit] ABC and CNN

After making the jump to ABC News as a co-host of 20/20, she had a high profile interview with Gary Condit, on his relationship with murdered Washington, D.C., intern Chandra Levy.

She was a popular guest host of the morning program, Good Morning America. After short-lived host Lisa McRee left the program, Chung declined to take over on a permanent basis, saying she did not want to broadcast 10 hours a week in early morning hours.

Chung briefly hosted her own show on CNN entitled Connie Chung Tonight, where she was paid $2 million per year. Though her arrival at CNN was heavily hyped by the network, her show was panned by critics. CNN changed her show from live to tape-delay to make it flow better. Although it did moderately well in the ratings (a 500,000 increase in viewers), her show was suspended once the 2003 Iraq War began. During the war, she was reduced to reading hourly headlines. Once CNN resumed regular programming, Chung requested that CNN resume broadcasting her show as soon as possible. The network responded by cancelling it, even though her contract had not yet expired. In an interview, CNN founder Ted Turner called the show “just awful.”^[4]

[edit] MSNBC

In January 2006, Chung and Maury Povich began hosting a show titled Weekends with Maury and Connie on MSNBC. It was Chung’s first appearance as a television host since 2003. The show was subsequently cancelled and aired its final episode on June 17, 2006. On this episode, Chung, dressed in a white evening gown and writhing atop a black piano, sang a parody to the tune of Thanks for the Memory. Video clips of the bizarre, off-key farewell performance circulated on internet video sites like YouTube, ironically viewed by more people than viewed Weekends with Maury and Connie during its run. Connie herself commented, “All I want to be sure of is that viewers understood it was a giant self-parody. If anyone took it seriously, they really need to get a life.”^[5] On the June 27, 2006, episode of The Tonight Show, Chung was interviewed by Jay Leno regarding her "Thanks for the Memories" parody. During the interview, Chung poked fun at her show’s low ratings, referring to the musical number as a “private joke for our two viewers.”

[edit] Trivia

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Chung first majored in biology in college then eventually changed to journalism.
Chung accepted a teaching fellowship at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[1]While she was at Harvard, she wrote a discussion paper entitled The Business of Getting "The Get": Nailing an Exclusive Interview in Prime Time.^[6]^[7]
Chung was the first journalist to interview basketball legend Magic Johnson after he went public about being HIV-positive. She was also the first to interview congressman Gary Condit after his intern Chandra Levy disappeared.[2]
She has received three Emmy Awards, including two for Best Interview/Interviewer.[3]
Even when not in the public eye, Chung has been lampooned regularly on the Fox television series MADtv by comedian Bobby Lee in drag. (Years before this, Chung was parodied on the program In Living Color by cast member of the show, Steve Park)
She worked alongside sportscasters Brent Musburger and Roy Firestone, and Steve Edwards (talk show host) when she did local news in Los Angeles.
Walter Cronkite is Chung's hero in journalism.^[8]
Chung's biggest phobia is disorganization, as a result of her problem with OCD.^[8]