How Connie Chung launched a technology of Asian American ladies named ‘Connie’ — and had no concept

NEW YORK — Some public figures are honored with namesake buildings or monuments. Veteran broadcaster Connie Chung has a pressure of marijuana and a whole bunch of Asian-American girls as legacies.

Chung was contacted 5 years in the past by a fellow journalist, Connie Wang, whose Chinese language immigrant mother and father gave her the prospect as a preschooler to select an Americanized first identify. She considered Connie, after the beautiful lady she noticed on TV, and likewise instructed some random cartoon characters. Her mother and father selected correctly.

After reaching faculty, Wang realized she was a part of a particular sorority. There have been all types of Asian American Connies round her, many given the identify by mother and father who noticed Chung as a wise, achieved lady whose skilled success their daughters might aspire to.

Till Wang advised her this, Chung had no concept.

“I used to be flabbergasted,” she stated. “I am not a crybaby, and I actually bawled.”

Clearly, a profession in tv information had a larger affect than she knew. Chung, now 78, tells tales about her life in a brand new memoir 10 years within the writing and on sale Tuesday, titled — what else? — “Connie.”

Chung’s profession took her from Washington reporting for a fabled CBS Information bureau within the Nineteen Seventies by anchor jobs in Los Angeles and at NBC Information and an ill-fated partnership with Dan Moderately on the “CBS Night Information” within the Nineties to dodging the Barbara Walters-Diane Sawyer rivalry at ABC Information.

She dishes and, sure, names names. The presidential candidate who made a cross at her. The actor who gravitated to Asian girls. The male anchor (not Moderately) who lengthy held a grudge in opposition to her.

Off the air for a number of years now, she lives a snug retired life along with her husband, tv character Maury Povich. Between her absence, the Moderately episode and a tarring with extra of a status as a celeb journalist than she ever needed, Chung is commonly ignored.

Not by Wang and different Connies. Few Asian-Individuals had the identify earlier than Chung and few since, however “from the late Nineteen Seventies to the mid-Nineties, that is the Connie technology,” she stated. A frequent argument for range within the office is so younger individuals can see themselves in distinguished roles; hardly ever do you come throughout such a tangible instance of its impact.

Shortly after writing concerning the phenomenon, Wang stated she personally heard from at the least 100 Connies with comparable tales, probably a small pattern of what is on the market.

“There was fairly actually nobody else like her,” Wang stated. “She was very skilled, she was robust but in addition stunning. What drew my mom to her was additionally her type. She cared a lot about her look.”

Chung was the tenth little one — the one one born in the USA — of Chinese language mother and father whose marriage had been organized once they have been 12 and 14 and met 5 years in a while their marriage ceremony day. No son survived previous infancy, so her father beseeched her to convey honor to the household identify when she started her profession. As a substitute it turned out to be Connie — shortened from Constance — that turned inspirational.

Rapidly out of school and two years in native information, Chung earned a job at CBS, partly as a result of there was stress within the late Sixties and early Nineteen Seventies to make tv rather less of a white man’s world.

“I all the time needed to show myself,” Chung recalled. “Day by day was a take a look at, as a result of I used to be a girl and since I used to be a minority, however extra as a result of I used to be a girl. There have been no skirts in my enterprise.”

Her hustle earned respect, along with her willingness to remain up just about all night time masking George McGovern’s 1972 presidential marketing campaign leading to a scoop on his vice presidential selection. She needed to show herself to older males and dodge predators, as soon as publicly rejecting a sodden suitor with a sly nod to an outdated cliché about Chinese language meals not conserving one sated for lengthy: “You do not wish to go to mattress with me,” she stated. “You will simply be attractive an hour later.”

She feels that younger individuals want to listen to tales about sexism and racism she encountered.

“We have come a good distance, however the factor that’s disturbing to me is that we actually have not come that lengthy a method,” she stated. “The sexism nonetheless exists. The racism for Asians has reared its ugly head in a most miserable method. Trying again, it is essential to me that ladies and minorities know that issues have modified, however not sufficient.”

From the memoir, it is clear that she remembers most fondly these days of masking laborious information, from Watergate to Nelson Rockefeller’s transient tenure as vp.

Chung turned a information anchor regionally in Los Angeles and, within the Nineteen Eighties, at NBC Information. But she stated she was saddled too usually with what have been thought-about “girls’s tales,” about miniskirts originally of her profession to superstar profiles and tabloid fodder like “Scared Sexless,” about AIDS, at NBC.

Too usually, she says, she accepted assignments that she actually did not wish to cowl. Her status suffered. Secretly she agreed with among the criticism, however it wasn’t simple seeing influential critic Tom Shales name her “Connie Enjoyable.”

“I by no means needed to be referred to as the ‘b-word,’” she stated. “I by no means needed to be referred to as a diva. So I cooperated loads. I believe that is a Chinese language factor and a girl factor. I used to be a double dose of dutiful, so it was as a lot my very own doing by agreeing to do issues that my higher-ups needed me to do.”

She moved again to CBS Information and, with Dan Moderately struggling within the scores as “CBS Night Information” anchor in 1993, was named his co-anchor. It appeared like a profession peak, however Chung wrote that she had an inkling of what was to come back in her first assembly with Moderately, when he stated, “now you’ll have to begin studying the newspaper.”

Chung writes in “Connie”: “I needed to consider I had been chosen as a result of I deserved the job. I will need to have been dreaming. They needed me to place a bow round Dan Moderately’s neck that may make him seem pleasant and cuddly and regular. However as a substitute, it was I who ended up in a noose.”

The partnership lasted two years earlier than Chung acquired the ax. She selected to not settle for CBS’ provide of a face-saving function, as a substitute throwing herself into elevating Matthew, the toddler she and Povich adopted.

Later transferring on to ABC Information, she discovered some satisfying work with some newsier investigations, ones the place she did not need to become involved within the titanic struggles between Sawyer and Walters. She accepted a prime-time anchor’s job at CNN, however that proved short-lived. Her TV profession was winding down.

Chung not too long ago came upon, from her niece, about her different namesake — the Connie Chung pressure of marijuana. Ever the journalist, she dove into analysis, discovering a pack of 5 pre-rolled joints out there on-line for $22.

Requested if Connie Chung has tried the Connie Chung model, she politely demurred, then later volunteered that she hadn’t smoked marijuana since faculty, successfully answering the query. However she took satisfaction in studying concerning the traits of Chung weed.

“I am simple to develop,” she stated. “I create a beautiful flower and one in every of my favourite elements is that I am low-maintenance. I discover that very admirable, though I do not assume Maury would agree that I am low-maintenance.”

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Observe him at http://x.com/dbauder.