Connie Chung details her climb to the top of her male-dominated field : NPR

Veteran TV information anchor Connie Chung jokes that a part of her success could be attributed to booze and bawdy humor. That is as a result of when she was first beginning out, she was usually the one girl among the many all-male press corps.

On the street masking the 1972 presidential marketing campaign, Chung tended to retreat to her lodge room at evening. She thought she was being accountable by prepping for the following day— then she seen the male reporters have been getting scoops that she was lacking.

“It all of the sudden dawned on me they have been saucing up the marketing campaign supervisor and everybody who labored for the candidate, and letting them spill the beans,” Chung says.

Chung started to go right down to the bar at evening, the place, she says, consuming and jokes helped her to interrupt into the press corps “boys membership.”

“Therein lies an effective way to discover ways to be a reporter,” she says. “I do not suggest it by any means. However on the time, I simply needed to discover a means.”

In her new memoir, Connie, Chung opens up in regards to the a long time she spent masking the information, her marriage to tabloid talk-show host Maury Povich and the outstanding figures who acted inappropriately along with her — together with President Jimmy Carter, who, she says, pressed his knee towards hers suggestively at a black-tie dinner.

In 1993, when Chung was named co-anchor of CBS Night Information, she turned the primary Asian American — and second girl — to have the place. She says it was “fairly clear” that veteran newsman Dan Moderately did not need her there.

“I do not blame him completely, as a result of he had owned Walter Cronkite’s chair for a few years and needed to transfer over just a few inches to make room for me,” she says. “And I do imagine that had I been one other man, had I been an animal, had I been a plant … he wouldn’t have needed anybody to share that seat with him.”

All through her profession, Chung was usually one of many few Asian American newscasters on tv. In 2020, Chung realized the affect she’d had on the neighborhood when a author named Connie Wong reached out, telling her a couple of technology of immigrants who had named their child women after her.

“There have been these … infants who have been truly named ‘Connie Chung’ after which their final identify,” Chung says. “Truthfully, I am unable to actually embrace how gargantuan it’s. It’s profound.”

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Interview highlights

On masking the O.J. Simpson trial — regardless that she did not wish to

The lads couldn’t be pushed into that course. CBS Information, Dan Moderately, who was my co-anchor, would not contact it. And 60 Minutes, it was all males on the time and so they would not contact it. In order that they needed nothing to do with O.J. Simpson. And admittedly, I did not both. However the administration would come to me and say, “Barbara Walters is getting X, Diane Sawyer is getting Y and Katie Couric is getting Z. You need to do that for the group.” I stated, “I do not wish to, I do not see the worth in it. It is tabloid.”

I’ve lots of regrets, however that is among the largest ones, of being the nice lady, … being instructed what to do. Resisting, however by no means having the ability to put my foot down and say, “I’m not doing it. Go discover anyone else.”

On studying find out how to stake out a narrative from Barbara Walters

She picked up the telephone herself. She wrote a letter. She faxed. She referred to as. She nudged. She would say, “Let’s have lunch.” And I’d name it, “Being Barbara’d.’

Barbara and I had so much in widespread. She was clearly the pioneer and paved our means. However she was the breadwinner in her household as a result of her father’s nightclubs tanked and she or he needed to maintain her mom and her father, assist her mom and her father and her disabled sister. I used to be the breadwinner in my household as effectively for my mom and father. I supported them until the day they died. From about 25 on, I used to be their father or mother. We each co-anchored with somebody who despised us, a person. We have been each fired after two years. We each adopted a baby. We each married good Jewish boys — though I believe Barbara married possibly two or three. However I admired Barbara as a result of she paved our means.

On her marriage to Maury Povich

I am nonetheless questioning how come we’re an ideal match, as a result of we’re so totally different. However the public personas belie what is actually behind our door. … He is a really down-to-earth, practical man. What belies his public persona is that he’s very a lot a voracious reader. He is a political buff. He is a historical past buff. He may run circles round these pseudo-intellectuals who do interviews with essential individuals. And I all the time say that to him: “Why do not you do a critical speak present? …You are so good and other people would understand how good you’re.” And he says, “So long as you realize that, I am advantageous.” And I believed, my goodness! What a man.

On being anti-social

Maury and I keep house on a regular basis. We’re so boring. If somebody asks us to go have dinner, now we have to consider it for just a few months. … I am the one who’s much more anti-social within the sense that. I wish to wash my face and take off my make-up and look scary. And I do not need anyone else seeing me trying scary.

On the state of TV information at present

Once I see [a bad] interview on tv, I wish to throw my shoe at it if anyone is not asking the query, the following query that I’d ask. … I miss that that — the interviews and having the ability to dig deeper, however I additionally miss the enjoyment of going after a narrative that is worthy. And I do know it sounds actually old school, but when I can change a authorities fallacious or a change an angle relating to social ills or no matter, one thing like that, I believe it is so gratifying.

On why she wrote her memoir

I got here throughout a letter from my father, and he had written it after I had already begun within the information enterprise. … My dad and mom have been born in 1909 [and] in 1911, in previous China, pre-communist China. They grew up with very conventional dad and mom. My mom’s ft have been certain. Their marriage was organized when she was solely 12 and he was 14. They have been married at 17 and 19. … They’d 10 — should you can imagine it — youngsters. I used to be the tenth, the one one born in america. They’d 9 youngsters in China, 5 of whom died as infants. Three of these infants who died have been boys. …

In order that they raised 5 very ballsy girls. And I’ve to say that all of them may have been CEOs or had totally different lives had they grown up in a unique period. However … my father gave me this mission. He stated, “Perhaps you possibly can keep it up the identify Chung. Inform everyone how we got here to america,” that means him and my 4 older sisters and my mom.

Sam Briger and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper tailored it for the online.