The Story of a Generation

Michele Willens reviews Connie Chung’s memoir, which recalls her barrier-shattering career in TV news journalism.

By Michele WillensOctober 13, 2024

• Television

• Memoir & Essay

• Biography & Autobiography

LAST YEAR, The New York Times ran a much-discussed piece about how many Asian women in this country were named “Connie.” “Afterward, I went back to my dorm room and typed ‘Connie’ into the campus Facebook,” wrote one UC Berkeley student.

I found the girl from the sandwich line—and I also found many, many more. In my freshman class alone, there was a Connie Zheng, a Connie Guo, a Connie Xu, a few Connie Chengs, and multiple Connie Wangs. […]

All this time, I’d thought the story of my name was special; little did I know it was the story of a generation.

Well, that generation will now have their dream come true: a memoir by Connie Chung, simply titled Connie, came out this September. In the book, over which the author labored for many years, Chung discusses her family background and her entrance into news-gathering. She is one of the few reporters who eventually worked for all three major networks, plus CNN. Reporting, co-anchoring, hosting newsmagazines—she did it all.

The book is very well written. No personal aspect goes untouched: growing up as the youngest of 10 children, losing siblings along the way, witnessing her parents’ fraying relationship. As her siblings left the household, she writes, the “emptiness that [Chung’s] mother felt aggravated something a busier time had masked—the unhappiness of [her] marriage.” At the age of eight, Chung taught her mother English so she could pass her exam for citizenship. Chung felt like a wallflower in high school, but once at the University of Maryland, she says, “I had gumption.”

Chung made her way through minor newsroom jobs (“The hours were lousy, but my foot was in the door”) where, she says, “the racism I experienced was as reprehensible as the sexism.” Eventually, she reached the top. Big names were encountered along the way. When meeting Walter Cronkite, she writes, “I felt as if I were meeting the pope. […] He was kind, warm, friendly, down to earth, and never intimidating.” She goes on to contrast Cronkite with other new anchors, such as Dan Rather and Roger Mudd. There was plenty of sexual inappropriateness from folks like John Mitchell and Henry Kissinger (“There was little I could do or say to avoid those creepy old men”), and even a surprising kiss in a dark hallway from George McGovern. Chung’s humor comes through even as she aptly describes her workplaces—“ABC: Anybody but Connie”; “NBC: Nobody But Connie”; “CBS: Connie’s Big Start.”

A local affiliate—KNXT in Los Angeles—was where she reached new heights. It was considered an odd decision to transfer there in 1976, but it worked. She wondered whether “this [was] how baseball players feel when they are traded.” She writes: “I’d be going from network news to local news—a step in the wrong direction.” But her salary jumped from $29,000 to $100,000, and she was an instant star in a city that knows its stars.

“Connie was a gracious, credible, and informed anchor,” Van Gordon Sauter, formerly the general manager of KNXT, told me, “but capable of a seething ire if someone failed to perform their role in the broadcast or questioned her integrity. She was also fun. Loved to laugh. And tolerated being the butt of a joke if it wasn’t a reflection on her personal or professional standing. A marvelous woman.”

The racism did not totally disappear. For example, there was the time KNXT sportscaster Ted Dawson signed off by saying that he would be sending her his laundry. She outlasted him and a group of co-anchors in Los Angeles, including Joseph Benti (whom she depicts as pompous and self-absorbed), Brent Musburger (who was trying to move from sports to news), and more. That was a time when many L.A. locals moved upward, including Tom Brokaw, Tom Snyder, and Bryant Gumbel. Another woman who moved up was Linda Douglass, who enjoyed a friendly competition with Chung over political stories. “When it came to the big get, she was ferociously competitive,” Douglass told me. “Her determination and focus were essential to her rise.” The two remain close friends. Connie Chung stayed in Los Angeles until 1983 when she moved to New York and back to the national networks.

It was during that period that Chung revealed her secret relationship with TV personality Maury Povich. The announcement was almost a necessity since it seemed as if every available male in New York City was asking her out for a date. She reluctantly agreed to meet one named Glenn. In his car, she asked what he did, and he mentioned he was a singer in a group. She asked what songs he wrote, and he flipped on a tape to play “Hotel California.” Oh, that Glenn. Warren Beatty, no surprise, showed interest, and Chung was often as willing as the guys. Leaving one party, she and Ryan O’Neal spotted one another. “Your place or mine?” she asked. “Up to you,” he replied.

Chung and Povich officially wed 40 years ago. I remember the brief but revelatory toast made by Povich’s famous sportswriter dad: “Well, Maury, you got lucky again.” The couple has one son, who was adopted after their long—and very public—struggles to conceive.

Perhaps this book will finally convince Connie Chung of her national impact. “I was always surprised that Connie never accepted when I told her she was the Jackie Robinson of Asian Americans in TV News,” Povich told me. His sister-in-law, magazine editor Lynn Povich, agrees: “Many TV people have told me that Connie is one of the nicest people in the business.” She is the most loyal and supportive sister-in-law and the funniest. She can make a mean dumpling and belt out a Broadway tune. She broke through the barrier and led the way for so many journalists. No wonder a generation of Asian-American women is named after her.