This year TV news journalist Connie Chung wrote a new tell-all memoir. It's about breaking into the boys club of her industry, her marriage to Maury Povitch, and the big scoops of her career. The funny and off-the-cuff news icon spoke with Tonya Mosley. Also, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers musicians who died this year.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Connie Chung and what is her significance?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. We're looking back at some of our favorite interviews of the year. Today, pioneering TV journalist Connie Chung. When Chung appeared on television back in the 70s, it was the first time many Americans had seen an Asian woman reporting the news and setting the national conversation with her interviews with heads of state and controversial figures.
For three decades, Chung was a key player in every major news cycle, covering Capitol Hill, the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department. In 1991, she was the first journalist to get a sit-down interview with Magic Johnson, just a month after he announced his HIV status.
Connie Chung has worked for ABC, both NBC and MSNBC, CNN and CBS, where she got her start and later became the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and the second woman in the history of television news to anchor an evening newscast.
I spoke with Chung in September for her memoir, where she gives a behind-the-scenes look at what it took for her to climb to the top of the male-dominated field of TV news. Chung spills the tea on some well-known celebrities and politicians who hit on her, and she doesn't shy away from naming names of people who crossed her and sometimes made her job more difficult than it needed to be.
We also talk about one of the more challenging interviews with Donald Trump in 1990.
What Donald Trump does, of course, is make a lot of money and make sure everybody knows it. A yacht, a mansion, a bigger mansion, an airline, two casinos, a bigger casino.
That is really incredible. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like this place.
By now, his possessions are more familiar to us than what we have hanging in our own closets. His buildings? Well, you know which ones they are.
I sell very great condominiums in New York. I have the best casinos in the world. They're the best.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Connie Chung face as a female journalist?
Yeah. And I can't remember the exact words, but that I was basically stupid and didn't ask good questions and all of that. I would see him – my husband is a crazy golfer. You know my husband, Mari Povich, who's been determining the paternity of every child in America? You are the father. You are not the father. Well, in addition to that, my husband is a very good golfer as well.
I would see Donald Trump at celebrity golf tournaments in which my husband was playing. And he ghosted me, essentially. It was as if I were invisible. I wasn't there. Maury would say, you know Connie. And I was just...
You started in the early 70s. And in many instances, you were the only woman among these guys. In particular, you write about being on the road covering the 1972 presidential campaign. You were traveling essentially with the press corps of all men. And you realized that being funny was a way to disarm or diffuse. But did it ever feel dangerous?
No. No, it wasn't dangerous. It was just fraught with sexism. And, I mean, I think they all saw me as this unusual little toy.
They almost seemed to you like a delight, like almost a novelty. Yes. Kind of tinged with fetish behavior, but that was until you started to scoop them.
Well, they were surprised when I came up with a story that they didn't have. It was a little competition, you know, and I love the competition. So I just... developed this sense of humor. And what I did was I tried to get them before they got me. And I had this propensity to be much too bawdy. And it was antithetical to what I looked like. You know, I looked like a lotus blossom.
And they were appalled that I had the audacity to use a bad word. But at the same time, they found it very comical.
There's this story that you tell about being a goody two shoes. Is it Timothy Krause? He wrote in his book, The Boys on the Bus, which is about covering the 72 presidential campaign, that he says this about you, quote, TV correspondents would join the wee hour poker games or drinking games.
Connie Chung, the pretty Chinese CBS correspondent, occupied the room next to mine, and she always was back by midnight reciting a final 60-second radio spot into her Sony or absorbing one last press release before getting a good night's sleep. And the next morning, he noted, you would be up and at them with the other reporters, all guys, and they were staving off a hangover.
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Chapter 3: What was Connie Chung's experience interviewing Donald Trump?
And that you really have some feelings that are down deep in here. that you don't really want to share with me?
Well, first of all, I share, you know, I've never shared my life with anybody publicly, you know, because that's just me. You know, at home is at home. Now, what you want to give to the public, that's what you give. Now, with this situation, I'm giving everything from my heart.
Really?
Yeah, I mean, I came out to say I have it to help people.
That was my guest, Connie Chung, interviewing Magic Johnson in 1991. just a month after he announced that he was HIV positive. And Connie, I know you just mentioned how you really didn't want to do the celebrity interview because who cares if, you know, about someone's personal life. But this was a story that had such cultural and social significance because of HIV at that time frame.
How did you get that exclusive?
You're so right, Tanya. The reason why I wanted to get it was because HIV, AIDS was at the... It was a front-burner story. And when Magic sacrificed himself and his reputation, his career, everything came out, he was such a gem. I used to... Kind of no magic, because I did the news in Los Angeles.
And when he came on live with the sports reporter at the time, he would always say with his big, beautiful smile, say hi to Connie. You know, his smile is infectious. And he actually asked me to go have... some soul food with him and his very tall friends. And we went to Boris's Snack and Chat, and it was the most incredible gravy-covered fried chicken I had ever had in my life.
And I wolfed it down. At that time, I was young, and I could eat anything I wanted, and it didn't show up in bad places. Now there's a festival going on below my waist. They said, where the heck did that come from? But I thought to myself, I could get that interview because I know him and I'm kind of his friend.
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Chapter 7: What impact did Connie Chung's memoir have on her career?
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today my guest is award-winning journalist Connie Chung. She's written a new memoir about her life and career in television news. She takes us in the book behind the scenes of her news career, from the showdowns with powerful men to the stories behind some of her career-defining reporting.
In 1993, Chung became the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News. And a few years ago, Chung learned about a phenomenon. From the late 70s through the mid-90s, Asian American parents, inspired by seeing Chung on TV, named their daughters Connie, forming the Connie Generation. You know, Connie, your career...
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