How Connie Chung Discovered to Cease Worrying and Get Private: ‘I Was Uncomfortable, Actually’

Connie Chung would not prefer to get private. “Frankly, I used to be uncomfortable,” the 78-year-old information veteran informed TVNewser with a resigned smile whereas describing the “tortuous” means of turning her life right into a veritable open e book – in particularly the brand new autobiography, Connie: A Memoir. So it is no shock that her first model sticks to the “simply the information” method that Chung favored as a pioneering tv journalist whose profession spanned many years — and throughout all three networks of diffusion.

However this isn’t the model of his life his writer needed to learn. “She informed me, ‘It’s a must to inform me how you’re feeling,’” Chung recollects. Initially hesitant about this comment, she rapidly discovered an answer that comedians have employed for many years: utilizing a well-written, well-timed joke to defuse even essentially the most distressing moments.

“I attempted to not wallow within the uncomfortable moments of my life,” Chung says of how she approached the dreaded rewriting course of. “After I handled them with humor, they didn’t appear so upsetting.”

With humor in her arsenal, Chung quickly discovered herself in a position to write about moments from her previous that she had by no means revealed earlier than. Concrete instance: whereas protecting George McGovernThrough the long-running 1972 presidential marketing campaign — her first main project for CBS Information — she fended off an ungainly kiss from the candidate after becoming a member of him for an in any other case “calm and uneventful” dinner with Hollywood supporters. Warren Beatty And Julie Christie.

Chung protecting Washington, DC within the Nineteen SeventiesCourtesy of CBS through Getty Photos

“I used to be shocked. I backed away,” Chung writes within the e book. “He rapidly caught on and backed off as properly. It was not an aggressive act. Simply stunning.

Chung confirms that she had by no means informed this story publicly earlier than posting it on the web page. And she or he reveals she not too long ago met one other girl who claimed McGovern proposed to her years later. (McGovern died in 2012.)

“There is a lengthy historical past of presidents and presidential candidates forgetting that they are regular human beings, however then we’re all reminded that they’re,” Chung says of the act of caring undesirable by McGovern, emphasizing John F. Kennedy, Gary HartAnd Invoice Clinton like different examples. “These males imagine they’ve energy over ladies – energy harassment, I suppose you could possibly name it.”

[Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House in November. In 2023, the president-elect was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming author E. Jean Carroll.]

Chung’s encounter with McGovern was some of the excessive examples of how her gender triggered her to face out “like a sore thumb” from the male-dominated press corps on the time. “When you’ve got an aardvark on the aircraft or the bus, you have a tendency to have a look at it just a little in a different way than all of the lions, tigers and bears,” she says, as soon as once more demonstrating her humorousness. “I couldn’t assist however appeal to consideration, as a result of the opposite journalists simply didn’t know what to do with me.”

Chung in his second stint at CBS InformationCourtesy of CBS through Getty Photos

To defuse the sensation of exoticism that adopted her in the course of the election marketing campaign, Chung remembers that she agreed to be “one of many boys”, competing fiercely together with her rivals for scoops. “I needed to be accepted into the membership,” she says. “In my head, the one approach to try this was to see myself as a person after which I may imagine in myself – and perhaps they’d imagine it too.”

By the tip of Chung’s time protecting the McGovern marketing campaign, many colleagues believed in her. She rapidly left the anchor path, first at CBS’ flagship West Coast station in Los Angeles, adopted by a morning present on NBC, a decade-long return to CBS and a stint within the late 90s at ABC.

Throughout this time, nevertheless, she noticed the sporting competitiveness of the Nineteen Seventies give technique to a extra cutthroat ambiance, pushed primarily by monetary outcomes. “Networks grew to become corporations that solely cared about cash,” she notes with obvious remorse. “Journalism received misplaced within the course of.”

In his memoir, Chung recounts how this modification profoundly impacted relationships between high-level journalists. After arriving at ABC, for instance, she describes changing into an unwitting participant in a rankings feud between the channel’s star hosts, Diane Sawyer and the delay Barbara WaltersSawyer even claiming that Walters would say detrimental issues about Chung behind his again.

“They have been losing their vitality preventing as an alternative of looking for the story,” Chung says. “They have been like Velcro: it was tough to take away them. After which I blamed myself for having been dragged into this unhealthy competitors! Competitors has all the time been a trademark of journalism, however a lot is misplaced once we neglect about accuracy and reality.

In Chung’s eyes, this development has continued because the rise of cable information has steadily blurred the road between reporting and opinion, with the latter usually veering towards the sort of private storytelling she dislikes. “I don’t care what they suppose, do I?” Chung stated with fun. “As a reader and viewer of tv, I usually battle to seek out the reality.”

Chung on the Asian Corridor of Fame Centennial Medal CeremonyPicture by Olivia Wong/Getty Photos

The reality about Chung’s profession is that it opened doorways that allowed subsequent generations of Asian American journalists to seek out alternatives in main community newsrooms. In 2016, she was inducted into the Asian Corridor of Fame and acquired the group’s Centennial Medal for Lifetime Achievement final September.

“I don’t take these awards flippantly,” Chung says of his newest honor. “I’m all the time and intensely flattered after they arrive.”

Naturally, she will’t assist however dismiss this honest sentiment as a joke. “I typically really feel like I am attending my very own funeral,” Chung says slyly about attending occasions the place she is the honoree. “I informed my husband [Maury Povich] the opposite day I feel I used to be happier after I thought I had chopped liver!