Connie Chung, full name:
Constance Yu-Hwa Chung Povich is an American
journalistJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
who has been an anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
,
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
,
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
,
CNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, and
MSNBCMSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
. Some of her more famous interview subjects include
Claus von BülowClaus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.-Biography:Born...
and U.S. Representative
Gary ConditGary Adrian Condit is a former American politician, a Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003...
, whom Chung interviewed first after the
Chandra LevyChandra Ann Levy was an American intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001. She was presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002...
disappearance, and basketball legend
Earvin "Magic" JohnsonEarvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers...
after he went public about being HIV-positive. She was criticized for what was perceived as insensitivity with regard to an interview about the Oklahoma City bombing and her tactics to get Newt Gingrich's mother to admit her unguarded thoughts about Hillary Clinton.
She is married to talk show host
Maury PovichMaurice Richard "Maury" Povich is an American TV talk show host who currently hosts his self-titled talk show Maury.-Personal background:...
and they have one adopted son, Matthew Jay Povich.
Background
The youngest of ten children (of whom she and four others, all girls, survived) of a high-ranking
ChineseThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
diplomat, she was born and raised in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
She graduated from
Montgomery Blair High SchoolMontgomery Blair High School is a public high school located in unincorporated Silver Spring in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States...
in
Silver SpringSilver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...
,
MarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, and went on to receive a degree in
journalismJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
at the
University of Maryland, College ParkThe University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
in 1969. She has been married to talk show host
Maury PovichMaurice Richard "Maury" Povich is an American TV talk show host who currently hosts his self-titled talk show Maury.-Personal background:...
since 1984. Chung converted to Judaism upon her marriage to Povich. Chung announced that she was reducing her workload in 1991 in the hopes of getting pregnant. Together, they have one son whom they adopted on June 20, 1995, Matthew Jay Povich. He attended the
Allen-Stevenson SchoolAllen-Stevenson is a private boys elementary school located at 132 East 78th Street in New York City, New York.- History :The Allen School was founded in 1883 by Francis Bellows Allen at a home on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Its first class enrolled only three boys. In 1885, the school moved to...
and now attends the
Riverdale Country SchoolRiverdale Country School is a co-educational, independent, college-preparatory day school in New York City. One of the most competitive private schools in the nation, it is located on two campuses covering more than in the Riverdale section of The Bronx, New York.-History:Founded in 1907 by Dr...
.
Career
Chung was a Washington, D.C.-based
correspondentA correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...
for the
CBS Evening NewsCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
with Walter CronkiteWalter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
in the early 1970s, during the
WatergateThe Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
political scandal. Later, Chung left for the
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
-owned and operated station of CBS, KNXT (now
KCBSKCBS-TV, channel 2, is an owned-and-operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Los Angeles, California. KCBS-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KCAL-TV inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and its transmitter...
) which was in the nation's second largest (and highest paying) local market, 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
Today program. Later, NBC created
American Almanac, which she co-hosted with
Roger MuddRoger Mudd is a U.S. television journalist and broadcaster, most recently as the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, Mudd was weekend and weekday substitute anchor of CBS Evening News, co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News, and hosted NBC's Meet the Press, and NBC's American...
, after Mudd left the
NBC Nightly News, where he co-anchored for two years with
Tom BrokawThomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
.
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 WaltersBarbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
with
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
in 1976) to co-anchor a major network's national news broadcast (the solo national news anchor title in the United States goes to
Katie CouricKatherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...
at CBS). While hosting the
CBS Evening NewsCBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
, Chung also hosted a side project on CBS,
Eye to Eye with Connie ChungEye to Eye With Connie Chung was a news show that aired on CBS from 1993 to 1995. The show, hosted by Connie Chung as a second project from her time as co-anchoring the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, she hosted and would often report, either on individual stories or doing interviews...
and also
Face to Face with Connie Chung. After her unsuccessful co-anchoring stint with
Dan RatherDaniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
ended in 1995, Chung jumped to ABC News where she co-hosted the Monday edition of
20/20 with
Charles GibsonCharles deWolf "Charlie" Gibson is a former American broadcast television anchor and journalist. He was a host of Good Morning America from 1987 to 1998 and 1999 to 2006 and anchor of World News with Charles Gibson from 2006 to 2009....
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 WaltersBarbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
or
Mike WallaceMyron Leon "Mike" Wallace is an American journalist, former game show host, actor and media personality. During his 60+ year career, he has interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers....
. Consequently, her interviews were often used as a
public relationsPublic relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
move by those looking to overcome
scandalA scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed...
or controversy. Some of her more famous interview subjects include
Claus von BülowClaus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.-Biography:Born...
and U.S. Representative
Gary ConditGary Adrian Condit is a former American politician, a Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003...
, whom Chung interviewed first after the
Chandra LevyChandra Ann Levy was an American intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001. She was presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002...
disappearance. Chung was the first journalist to interview basketball legend
Earvin "Magic" JohnsonEarvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers...
after he went public about being HIV-positive.
Chung was a judge for the
Miss Universe 2011Miss Universe 2011, the 60th anniversary of the Miss Universe pageant, was held at the Credicard Hall in São Paulo, Brazil on September 12, 2011. Ximena Navarrete of Mexico crowned her successor, Leila Lopes of Angola, at the end of this event...
.
Kathleen Gingrich interview controversy
In a January 5, 1995 interview with Kathleen Gingrich, mother of
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
politician
Newt GingrichNewton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich is a U.S. Republican Party politician who served as the House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995 and as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999....
, on
Eye to Eye, Ms. Gingrich said she could not say what her son thought about
First LadyFirst Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...
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. Bill Carter for the
New York Times reported, "Ms. Chung had become the object of some of the most ferocious criticism, justified or not, ever directed at any network anchor as a result of her now infamous interview with Speaker Newt Gingrich's mother, Kathleen." The interview was also parodied on
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
.
Oklahoma City bombing interview
A few months later, in the wake of the April 1995
Oklahoma City bombingThe Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
, Chung asked an Oklahoma City Fire Department spokesman, "Can the Oklahoma City Fire Department handle
this?" Many viewers, particularly those in
Oklahoma CityOklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
, 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.
ABC and CNN
After making the jump to ABC News as a co-host of the Monday edition of
20/20 alongside
Charles GibsonCharles deWolf "Charlie" Gibson is a former American broadcast television anchor and journalist. He was a host of Good Morning America from 1987 to 1998 and 1999 to 2006 and anchor of World News with Charles Gibson from 2006 to 2009....
, she had an interview with
Gary ConditGary Adrian Condit is a former American politician, a Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003...
, on his relationship with murdered Washington, D.C., intern
Chandra LevyChandra Ann Levy was an American intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001. She was presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002...
.
She was a guest host of the morning program,
Good Morning AmericaGood Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
. After short-lived host
Lisa McReeLisa McRee is an American television journalist and former news anchor, born in Fort Worth, Texas.She was a news anchor for WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, from 1989 to 1991 before becoming one of the original anchors, along with Aaron Brown, of ABC News' World News Now when the show launched in 1992...
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 TonightConnie Chung Tonight is an American television newsmagazine hosted by Connie Chung. The hour-long series premiered on CNN/U.S. on June 24, 2002...
, 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 TurnerRobert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
called the show "just awful".
MSNBC
In January 2006, Chung and
Maury PovichMaurice Richard "Maury" Povich is an American TV talk show host who currently hosts his self-titled talk show Maury.-Personal background:...
began hosting a show titled
Weekends with Maury and ConnieWeekends with Maury and Connie is an MSNBC television news series featuring light-hearted take on news of the week.It was hosted by talk show host Maury Povich and his wife, television news anchor Connie Chung. Beginning in early 2006, it appeared every weekend morning on MSNBC until Dan Abrams was...
on
MSNBCMSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
. It was Chung's first appearance as a television host since 2003. The show was later 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"Thanks for the Memory" is a popular song, with music composed by Ralph Rainger and lyrics by Leo Robin. It was introduced in the 1938 film The Big Broadcast of 1938 by Shep Fields and His Orchestra with vocals by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross...
. Video clips of the bizarre, off-key farewell performance circulated on internet video sites. 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."
On the June 27, 2006, episode of
The Tonight ShowThe Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
, Chung was interviewed by
Jay LenoJames Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
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."
Teaching
Chung accepted a teaching fellowship at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. While at Harvard, she wrote a discussion paper titled
The Business of Getting "The Get": Nailing an Exclusive Interview in Prime Time.
Career timeline
- 1983–1986: NBC News at Sunrise
NBC News at Sunrise was an early morning news program produced by NBC News from 1983 to 1999. The program featured the top news headlines of the morning, sports and weather reports, and business segments. Many of the program's anchors also appeared on The Today Show...
anchor
- 1989–1990: Saturday Night with Connie Chung anchor
- 1993–1995: Eye to Eye with Connie Chung
Eye to Eye With Connie Chung was a news show that aired on CBS from 1993 to 1995. The show, hosted by Connie Chung as a second project from her time as co-anchoring the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, she hosted and would often report, either on individual stories or doing interviews...
anchor
- 1998–2002: 20/20 anchor
- 1999–2000: ABC 2000 Today
ABC 2000 Today was ABC News's coverage of the turn of the millennium from December 31, 1999 into January 1, 2000. Part of the 2000 Today programming in the United States, Peter Jennings anchored the 23 hours and 10 minutes of broadcast in Times Square Studios in Manhattan, New York...
correspondent
- 2002–2003: Connie Chung Tonight
Connie Chung Tonight is an American television newsmagazine hosted by Connie Chung. The hour-long series premiered on CNN/U.S. on June 24, 2002...
anchor
- 2006: Weekends with Maury and Connie
Weekends with Maury and Connie is an MSNBC television news series featuring light-hearted take on news of the week.It was hosted by talk show host Maury Povich and his wife, television news anchor Connie Chung. Beginning in early 2006, it appeared every weekend morning on MSNBC until Dan Abrams was...
anchor
External links