From covering the Watergate scandal in her 20s to interviewing Magic Johnson and U.S. presidents, Connie Chung has truly done it all. With more than 40 years in the business, the 1969 University of Maryland alum is known as a trailblazing journalist, being the first Asian American and second woman to anchor a major network broadcast.
Chung returned to her alma mater as just one of many stops on her nationwide press tour to promote her new memoir, “Connie” on Tuesday, Oct. 8. It was a packed house at the Samuel Riggs Alumni Center, with everyone anxious to get to hear from the legendary journalist, who also happens to be the wife of legendary TV host Maury Povich.
Another UMD alum, “CBS Sunday Morning” producer Jay Kernis (class of 1974), joined Chung onstage. Kernis and Chung had great chemistry onstage, maybe because Kernis used to be a producer with Chung on her CBS show, “Eye to Eye”.
Chung chronicled her legendary and groundbreaking career that required her to defy prejudices and prenotions as a female journalist. And believe it or not, those prejudices started right at her birth.
Born in 1946 to Chinese immigrants, she was the youngest of 10 children. She explained how her name came from a famous actor that her sisters found in a magazine.
“They flipped to a great actress named Constance Moore, and I became Constance,” she explained. “But everybody called me Connie.”
Chung said she was “the boy her family wanted” because three of her brothers died as infants while in China.
“What the grandparents wanted was not what the parents wanted, and so they never had that coveted son because the son could carry on the family name, as in many cultures,” she explained.
Chung came to this university in the 1960s, when in-state tuition cost about $200 a semester. Despite the low price, Chung did not live on campus because her family did not have a lot of extra money. While at university, Chung admitted that she was not the best student.
“I finally got serious because I almost flopped out,” she joked.
What may be even more surprising was that Chung did not originally come in as a journalism major. She started out as a biology major, then switched to business administration before stumbling upon the world of journalism while interning on Capitol Hill.
“I saw what the reporters were doing…and I really felt that the whole suite of American Capitol Hill and members of Congress were such respectable people,” she recalled. “I think that set me on the course, and I decided that I wanted to be a reporter.”
After graduating, Chung applied to work at WTOP in Washington, D.C., where she was greeted with what some may consider a harsh wake-up call: “You’ll never make it in this business.”
But Connie, being her strong-willed self, took it as motivation.
“I thought, just wait and see,” she said, which is far easier said than done when working in newsrooms dominated by white males. But Chung took a far different approach by deciding to fully emulate the persona of her male colleagues.
“If they’re going to act a certain way, I’m going to become part of the boys club too,” she stated. “I would walk into a room with bravado, I would command respect the way they did, I had confidence, I had moxy. I decided that I would just take pages from their playbook.”
This approach eventually led her to CBS, where she hosted the show “Eye to Eye” and first met Jay Kernis.
Then came May 14, 1993, a day that Chung describes as “the best professional day of her life.”
Chung was named the co-anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” which was considered one of the most respected newscasts on television. Unfortunately, the partnership between Chung and then-anchor Dan Rather did not last long.
“Here I was, sharing half the chair with a man who didn’t particularly want me there,” she recalled. “I mean, I could have been a man, or an animal, or even a plant, and he probably would not have wanted me in that seat.”
Though Chung was not wanted in all circles, there is a unique circle today of young Asian girls who look up to Connie– so much so that they were named after Chung herself. Connie was able to meet all these women, who were all profiled in a New York Times article titled “Generation Connie”. Chung recalled just how incredible and awe-inspiring it was to have the opportunity to meet all these women in person.
“I knew it was going to be an incredible day for me because I couldn’t believe that this phenomenon actually existed,” she said, before a video played showing the heartwarming moment of the moment.
Chung’s legacy can be best described by her husband, Maury.
“Maury used to always say, ‘You’re the Jackie Robinson of the news,’ and I’d say, ‘Bah!’” Chung said. “And he’d say, ‘No, you just don’t know who you are.’”
Though her journey has not been easy, Connie Chung will be known as someone who blazed the trail not just in the journalism world, but in the overall Asian American community.
