ASIAN INSPIRATION. Connie Chung, right, visited Portland last month and spoke about her new memoir, Connie, recounting her rise as a history-making figure in journalism and her connections to her familial roots. (Photo courtesy of Literary Arts)

From The Asian Reporter, V34, #10 (October 7, 2024), page 15.

Legendary journalist Connie Chung entertains Portland audience, meets three more Connies

By Dana Kim

Special to The Asian Reporter

Connie Chung visited Portland last month and spoke about her new memoir, Connie, recounting her rise as a history-making figure in journalism and her connections to her familial roots.

Chung candidly and humorously spoke about the biggest scoops of her career and her experiences meeting other women named "Connie" who were named after her. She also opened up about her father’s dreams about becoming a novelist.

"Maybe someday you can tell the story about the Chung family and how they came to the United States," Chung said, remembering a letter from her father.

Chung described her parents’ lives in China, where they were forced into an engagement that was arranged when they were 12 and 14 years old. They met — and married — five years later.

The last of ten children, and the only one born in the U.S., Connie also explained how her parents’ loss of five infants — three of them boys — led her to make the decision to become the "son" her father had always wanted.

Chung spoke about how difficult it was to write her memoir, which took 10 years, and she mentioned that her husband of four decades, Maury Povich, would jokingly ask, "Have you gotten your parents out of China yet?"

Chung’s parents had a wealthy lifestyle in China, she said, but living in the U.S. was tough. Her father had several jobs and her mother took care of their home and children.

Connie’s mother struggled to learn English because she was not taught the language while in China. "I taught my mother how to read" and prepared her for the citizenship test, Chung recalled.

Chung spoke about her first job at a local television station in 1969 following her college graduation with a degree in journalism. She worked as a newsroom secretary — the only job offered to women at the time — for two years, but she jumped at every opportunity to be involved in news stories to show her capabilities. Eventually she was promoted to a writing position and worked closely with the news anchors.

In a chance encounter, a CBS Washington Bureau chief happened to witness Chung barging into a restaurant to confront a manager about unsanitary kitchen practices. She said her hiring was a combination of her go-getter style and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"I was very lucky," Chung said. "There were very few women in the Washington Bureau of CBS."

While working with CBS News, she broke a story that "they didn’t think would be a story," according to Chung, who said it only became a story after an underling testified contrary to what his boss had said.

During her time there, Chung began adopting the swagger of a "cookie-cutter man" to fit into the male-dominated industry. She now advises against the strategy, but Chung basically took on male characteristics in order to compete with them while working. "I took pages from their playbook," she said.

In 1976 at age 29, Chung moved to the west coast, where she was "reborn," which was a result of finally moving out of her parents’ home.

"I felt so free. It was awesome," Chung said.

Still, her parents ultimately ended up moving to the west coast as well.

Being a good Chinese daughter, "I couldn’t say no," Chung said. "I just couldn’t do it."

During her time in California, Chung dove into her work.

In 1983, Chung joined NBC. At the talk, she spoke about 24-hour news, which had begun to challenge the established paradigm of broadcast news.

In an attempt to copy "60 Minutes," and because of racism and sexism in the workplace, Chung recalled that she became stuck doing "gotcha journalism," which threatened her reputation. The curse of these pieces was that "they were watched widely" and received "great ratings," she admitted.

In 1993, Chung returned to CBS and sat alongside co-anchor Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News.

"That was my dream job," Chung said. "That was the pinnacle of broadcast news."

Still, she said, she could tell her co-host was uncomfortable with her new position, despite the fact she was hired to raise network ratings.

"I understand why he had not wanted me there." Chung said.

Generation Connie

Chung also touched on the "sisterhood of Connies" that apparently had been created as her career soared. She explained that she’d received an e-mail from a Connie Wong, an immigrant from China who had chosen an American name after she arrived in the U.S. as a child. Chung laughingly said that because Wong’s family learned to speak English mostly through watching American television shows, her name would be either "Connie or Elmo."

Through e-mail, Chung also learned that Connie Wong attended UC Berkeley — and studied journalism.

Thanks to Wong, Chung discovered that the sisterhood of Connies — daughters born in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s — even existed. In 2023, Wong wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times called "I Got My Name From Connie Chung. So Did They." Wong eventually helped organize a gathering of Connie Chung and the Connies — called Generation Connie — and even found a photographer named Connie to help document the occasion.

At the event in Portland, there turned out to be three audience members named Connie. Each stood up and spoke about the story behind their name. Chung offered to meet with all three after the talk.

To end the evening, Chung took audience questions, which were submitted during the night on paper cards.

"Don’t listen to your critics," Chung said when replying to one of the questions. "Take your work seriously, don’t take yourself seriously."

Wise words from the trailblazing news anchor and reporter.