December 30, 2024 • 37 mins
This episode originally aired on Sept. 23, 2024. Veteran journalist Connie Chung originally wanted to tell her story through stand-up, but her husband — veteran daytime talk host Maury Povich — convinced her to write a memoir. We’re still hoping for that stand-up, Connie! In her memoir “Connie,” she describes her career as an Asian American woman in a white male-centered industry, and provides a behind-the-scenes look at some of her career-defining reporting. Connie joins the Bright Side to discuss her new memoir and why everyone needs a mentor or a Maury.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, bestie is today on the bright Side. This conversation
was so nice we had to play it twice. Today
we're bringing you an encore of our chat with legendary
journalist Connie Chung. She tells us about her early days
as a pioneering Asian American journalist, how she code switched
in a male dominated environment, plus her signature word of
advice that might surprise you. It's Monday, December thirtieth. I'm
(00:28):
Simone Boyce, I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine,
a daily show where we come together to share women's stories,
to laugh, learn and brighten your day. On my Mind
Monday is brought to you by Missus Meyers Clean Day
inspired by the goodness of the garden.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's on my Mind Monday, y'all, our opportunity to start
the week off with some fresh energy and something that
motivates us, inspires curiosity, and provides a fresh perspective.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Danielle, what's on your mind today?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Okay, before I tell you what's on my mind, I
have a question for you. Two questions actually, the first
is what compliment means the most to you? And the
second is what compliment is the hardest for you to
take or hear.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
The compliments that mean the most to me have to
do with my brain, my integrity, or my skills as
a parent. And the compliment that's hardest for me to hear,
I actually am.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Or like one that makes you uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Let me read for it makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, oh
my gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I mean I can think of so many compliments that
have been if you can even call it that, you know,
that have been handed to me over the years that
have made me uncomfortable. But I think anything related to
my appearance, it's not even then it makes me uncomfortable.
It's just like, Okay, yeah, I get it, that's the
first thing you notice. But let's go let's go deeper,
you know.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So I think what you just shared is how so
many people feel. And you know, I have that card
game question everything, and that's one of the questions in there.
It's a double question. And I put it in there
because I think compliments and criticism are at the heart
of our relationships and you need the right ratio. So
(02:17):
I read an article recently from Arthur C. Brooks in
The Atlantic Love Him All about compliments and he wrote
this piece called a Compliment That Really Means Something, where
he shares how to properly give a compliment, because he
says that when it's done well, words of praise can
be a soothing balm of human relations, but done poorly,
(02:38):
compliments can be ineffective and even destructive.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Okay, So what does he say is the right way
to give compliments? Okay?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
This is the best part. There's three simple rules. The
first be honest. He says, compliments are usually rejected when
they're not credible or sincere. So before you give somebody
a compliment, you got to ask yourself, do I truly
believe what I'm going to say to this person? You know,
I had a mentor years ago in radio. His name
was ro Con in Chicago, and he said to me,
(03:09):
don't ever forget Danielle. Audiences have a high bullshit meter,
and I've never forgotten it because it's true. And audience is,
you know, anybody's your audience. I think people can really
feel your intentions.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
So true.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So the second rule is make your compliment a pure gift.
Arthur writes that for a compliment to be honest, you
have to make it without asking or expecting anything in return.
And the third is avoid qualification. So don't compare a
person with someone else or with a standard benchmark. So,
for example, don't say something like you look good for
your age or your work is better than I expected.
(03:49):
I actually did this the other day.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
At the end of one of our interviews.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I told somebody that they were different than what I
anticipated them to be.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
In as soon as it flew.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Out of my mouth, I was like, that was the
worst compliment. And I meant it as a compliment, but
it came out so wrong. So I actually really believe
in these three rules.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I want to talk about the make your compliment a
pure gift part. I don't know if I'm down for this,
And I'll tell you what do I mean? If I
tell you I like your outfit, that is my invitation
for you to tell me the details. I'm asking for
the details, sys don't gate keep that's what I expect.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I feel like that's a follow up question.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I hear you.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know, my grandmother does something that makes me so annoyed.
If anybody tells her that they like her shoes or
her outfit or whatever, she tells them exactly where she
got it. From and exactly how much it cost.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Down to the ninety nine cents, right, yes.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And she's like, oh, I got it on set, and
I'm like, just say thank you, Oma, just say thank you.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
See.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I think that's a generational thing because I do think
that older women, older people, it's mostly older women, like
they want to tell you how good, how deep the
discount was, you know, they want you to know, which
is so funny deal.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
You know. I have one more little addendum because of
what you shared at the beginning of this about compliments
surrounding your appearance. He actually talks about this in the piece,
and he said, even if that's our first instinct, instead
of complimenting somebody's appearance, consider complimenting what psychologists call moral beauty,
so a characteristic that's reflected in courage or forgiveness, or
(05:30):
charity or acts of kindness. And this is a little
bit harder done than said, because if you just meet somebody,
you don't know if they're courageous, you don't know those
types of things. You may just be trying to connect
and say like, hey, I love your shoes. But if
you are complimenting somebody that you know, I think It's
always nice to be really detailed about the compliment and
(05:53):
to give it moral beauty instead of, you know, surface beauty.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I love this. This, This was such a great thoughts start.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm so glad you liked it. Thanks se money Well.
I could give compliments all day to our guest today.
It's the one and only Connie Chung.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
She made history in nineteen ninety three when she became
the first Asian and second woman to ever anchor a
major weekday news program in the US, and her relentless
pursuit of stories landed her exclusive interviews throughout her career,
including one with President Nixon during the Watergate scandal and
another with basketball star Magic Johnson. But navigating this predominantly
(06:31):
white male industry as an Asian woman was not easy,
and Connie Chung experienced a lot of overt sexism and
racism during her career. It's really wild to think about
the sexism being that overt, because I think you and
I hopefully have experienced a more covert form of it,
as conversations around this topic have really.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Escalated in our culture lately.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But I'm sure things were radically different when Connie Chung
was coming up.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I think about what was overtly and covertly said and
done as I was coming up, and I can't even
imagine what she dealt with. But she details some of
that and a whole lot more in her new memoir
titled Connie, a book that's Connie like you've never seen
her before. After spending so many years telling other people's stories,
(07:24):
She's finally ready to tell her own, and Simon and
I are so excited to hear her tell it in
her own words. It's coming up after the break stick
with us.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Thanks to our partners at missus Myers, you can learn
a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus
Myers's collection of household products are inspired by the garden
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Speaker 4 (07:56):
Connie Jong, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I tell you how happy I am to be with
you because and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Connie.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
We're so excited to have you. Simone and I are
both journalists and it feels like we have royalty in
the house, So thank you.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
Get out.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Thank you for saying that, But seriously, I've enjoyed your
call them broadcasts for your podcasts. I mean I listened
to a few so that I, you know, be prepared.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Because you're a good journalist.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Well, you know, I think that's key. It really is preparation.
It's disrespectful to me if you do not find out
a little bit about the people who are interviewing you.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, I can't wait to hear some more of your
career secrets. But first I want to start with this.
We've all watched you tell other people's stories for years
on TV, telling Americans stories through tragedy through triumph. Why
did you decide that now was the time to write
a memoir and tell your own story?
Speaker 6 (08:57):
Well, for years I told my husband I wanted to
do stand up to tell my story.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You would be so good at that stand up as
in stand up comedy.
Speaker 6 (09:07):
Yes, but tell my story in a one woman program
I show. And my husband said, absolutely not, you can't
do that. I said, why, you know? You are so wrong?
And I said, are you afraid I'll make a fool
of myself? And he said there is that risk? And
I thought, oh you, And so I decided, he said,
(09:32):
I really think you should write a book first, and
then you can do your stand up.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
And so when I went back and looked at.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
My father had written me a letter and he liked
doing that. He liked writing letters to my sisters. And
ME said we could keep it for posterity. And basically
he said, in his letter, perhaps you can tell this
story of how the Chuang family came to the United States,
(10:01):
and maybe you can carry on the family name the
way boys do. And I thought, well, because he had
written a bit of an autobiography, so I read it
over and I thought, well, maybe I can do that,
particularly because my parents had in China, they had ten children,
five of them died as infants, three of whom were boys,
(10:21):
and girls are not wanted in China, sadly a very
chauvenusic society. So I actually realized that I had taken
him seriously with that mission. So I decided that I
would actually fulfill my parents' dreams and become the son
that they never had because filial piety was so strong
(10:46):
in my very Chinese home. So off I went running
to write my book. My husband would tease me, you
know Maury Maury Povich.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Oh, yeah, we know, Maury.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
We've heard them he's been determining the paternity of every
freaking child in America. Yeah, you know, Maury, yes you
are the father. You are not the father, but I
guarantee you he has a wider vocabulary than that.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I have to tell you.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I don't think it's fair that he told you you're
not allowed to do stand up. Who was Maury Povich
to tell Kddie Chung that precisely?
Speaker 6 (11:24):
I thank you very much, will you I will invite
you over to dinner and you can tell him.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That, oh yea happily, thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Please, Fanny, I know we're all joking around, but you
did say something that really struck me, and you said
you wanted to become the son that the Chung family
didn't have. I'm curious what did that mean to you
throughout your career, because it's beautiful and it's a lot
of pressure.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
At the same time, I was filled with guilt, you know,
good old fashioned guilt that one's parents can lay on
you heavily. But at the same time it really kind
of worked, Danielle, because when I started working, I found
myself in a late nineteen sixties or early seventies among
what I call a sea of men.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
It was all men. Men in the newsroom.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Maybe there was one black male, but there certainly weren't
any minorities.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
And there were.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
Maybe one woman, but not someone who was so young
and thirsty and eager, like an eager beaver. So there
I stood among this sea of primarily white men, who
were my colleagues in the newsroom, who were my competitors
in the field, and the men I was covering because
(12:42):
it was in Washington, d c. Men at the White House,
men on Capitola Hill, men at the Stage Department, men
at the Pentagon. So I decided because as I looked around,
all I saw were guys, I thought, well, why can't
I be one of them? You know, I'm just going
to be a guy, So I'll be this time my
parents never had, but I will perceive myself as a guy.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
There I was.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
They were wearing staid suits with wingships, and they had
stentorian voices, and I was in polyester bell bottom's miniskirts
and stiletto. Was trying to be eyeball because I did
not want to have to look up at them, you know,
it was meaning to do so, so I took on
(13:29):
their characteristics. I had their bravado. I would walk into
a room with confidence. I owned the room. I was bold,
and I was sassy, and I was body and I
had a potty mouth. They didn't know what to do
with me because here I was this little lutus blessom
(13:49):
and I wasn't behaving the way they expected me to
behave like a dautiful little Chinese style, And so taking
pages from their playbook worked for me. I really became
a guy in my mind, so much so that when
I walked past a mirror or a storefront and be
shocked to see a Chinese woman staring back at me.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Connie, you grew up in the DC area in the
fifties and sixties, and that was a time of tremendous
social change. One of the things that I think is
the most gratifying about being a journalist is that you're
a first draft historian.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Oh yes, are.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
There any seminal moments from history that you reported on
that you think about to this day?
Speaker 5 (14:36):
Order game.
Speaker 6 (14:37):
It was an extraordinary time because the presidency was at stake,
very simply, and I think all of us felt the
huge responsibility of not reporting anything inaccurate because the presidency
was at stake, and I covered the House Judiciary Committee
hearings into the impeachment of Richard Dixon. And there's this
(15:00):
iconic photograph of me.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Have you seen it? Yes, yes you have.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So there's a photograph of one of your meetings with Nixon,
and you were with the other members of the Press corps.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
But everyone else in the shot is a white man. Yeah,
except for you. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Was it crazy at the time? Did anybody notice how
crazy it was? Because we look back on I didn't
think it was crazy.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
Yes, I think that they realized that I was an
art art I was not sitting there like a plant either.
I was vocal. I actually would speak up, and I'd
ask tough questions. And I think my whole being was
so antithetical to what they thought this little China dolls
(15:44):
should be like. It kind of stopped people in their tracks.
But then once they got used to, you know, this
testip person of me, I got some acceptance, but it
was grudging, you know, it is a grudging acceptance. I
(16:05):
continued having to prove myself, which is something that I
find women are perpetually settled with having to prove ourselves,
no matter how old we are. Or how seasoned we are,
or how experienced.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I completely agree with what you said about living a
life of feeling like you have to prove yourself at
every turn, and then when you pivot, you got to
prove it yourself again. And hopefully we live a life
where we are always evolving and always pivoting and always growing.
But I think the most telling part of that equation
for me is who are you trying to prove this too?
(16:44):
Is it to yourself? Is it to other people? Is
it to your family? Who was it for you?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Who is I trying to prove it to? I think
your correct I was trying to prove it to myself.
Not that I had imposterous syndrome. It was just I
wanted to have genuine confidence in myself, which I think
is very hard to do because as a woman and
(17:10):
as someone who's Chinese, I found myself second guessing myself
all the time. I have a perpetual should have could
have what a personality? And when I would come away
from an interview, I'd say, yeah, I should have asked this,
and I should have asked that, and I forgot to
ask this. It's striving for perfection, which I think afflicts
(17:35):
many women because men, I believe, think that they are
perfect already, and I think we're always striving for perfection,
and the sooner we realized that being perfect is not necessary,
that it's actually a somewhat fruitless goal, because there's no
(17:58):
such thing doing anything perfectly.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
During the height of the Me Too movement, you were
asked if you were sexually harassed and your reply was, oh, yeah,
oh sure, yeah, every day. I mean a lot, especially
when I started out and now getting to talk to you,
I understand the intonations of that, but I think that
(18:24):
those experiences shape us, whether we want to admit it
or not.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
When I was starting out.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I just recently started reflecting on this, because when you
have a goal, you just move forward.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
You don't think about things.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
You don't have time to necessarily feel them or reflect.
You just move forward. And in hindsight, I was harassed
so much. Really, Oh my god, what year would you say?
This was twenty thirteen. I started working and I was
harassed up, I'd say through the Me Too movement. Things
(19:00):
changed after that, but I moved into women's spaces, and
I think it was in part because of that. I
didn't want to deal with it anymore. And that was
twenty thirteen. Connie.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I cannot imagine what.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
You dealt with the shouldow would have could have in hindsight,
how do you think about that? Do you wish you
would have dealt with it differently? And what exactly were
people doing and saying?
Speaker 6 (19:26):
The sexist remarks were really pretty blatant, and they were daily,
and it was everything from a super sort of leering
but in a joking fashion. So I had this thing
whereby I would make a joke to them or shock
(19:50):
them with a gotcha before they got me, and so
it was a preemptive strike and it would be so
shocked look to their little virgin ears that I would
that they they couldn't believe that I had the audacity
to say something rude I mean rude to them before
(20:15):
they could to me. And they would, you know, just
sort of be shocked. They had no response. And then
the racist ones were equally as bad. You engage in
yellow journalism, you slant the news and a dragon lady,
and they thought they were the first ones to ever
(20:36):
come up with those phrases. I mean, duh, No, you're
not that clever. I mean, you're not clever at all.
I've heard them all my life.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Did they affect you?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
No?
Speaker 5 (20:47):
You know what.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
I was so focused. It's weird how focused I was.
It broke the tension for me because I was so
freaked and nervous about what I was going to how
I was going to write this story, whether I could
get it done, whether I'd done it correctly. I actually
found it. It was a good mo for me back
(21:10):
in the late sixties and seventies, because it would be
wholly unacceptable today, but back then it was what it was.
I'll tell you one incident when I was covering George
McGovern's campaign against Richard Wilson. I would always be in
my room pretty early so that I could get a
good night's sleep. So the next morning i'd be bright
(21:32):
and cheerful and ask the first question of the candidate.
And then I noticed that a lot of the men
were getting scoops. So I would call the Washington r
and ask the overnight desk what happened overnight so I
can ask the candidate about it. They'd tell me that
there was a big New York Times article or a
(21:52):
big Washington poster Boston glove article, And I thought, how
did they get that story, I realized the guys were
going down to the bar, getting drunk with the campaign
workers and getting them to spill the beans.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
So that did it.
Speaker 6 (22:07):
I was down at the bar, you know, I was
not getting a good night's sleep anymore. I was trying
to drink them under the table. So I took on
these characteristics of the men. Wow, and I just became
one of the guys. One time in the bar, a
guy was so drunk he kept coming around and being
a pest, and finally I looked at him and said,
(22:30):
you don't want to sleep with me. An hour later,
you'll want to do it again. And then the whole
table of guys applauded, and they just knew that I
could come back more badass than they could. And it's
not something to be proud of. It's just it was
(22:52):
my mo to survive.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, you also have that wit, so it worked for you.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Do you feel like you ever got to fully be
yourself because of the ways that you had to, you know,
act like your male colleagues in order to just survive
in that industry.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
As a friend of mine told me, you know, the
first one through the door faces the heaviest gunfire. And
I realized in writing the book that that's what was
happening to me. But yes, I was finally myself. After
weaving through the jungle. I had to cut down a
lot of trees to create a path, but I would
(23:33):
whack them, you know, right and left. But I still
took pages from the male playbook, like, for instance, Madeline
Albright said one time she was the first woman's Secretary
of State. She said when she was on the National
Security Council, she was afraid to speak up. Can you
imagine Meddleine Aubry afraid to speak up? She said she
(23:53):
would sit there and some guy would say the same
thing she was thinking, and she'd go, darn, I should
have said it.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
And you know, I realized that's what I do. I
get Frae.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
You know, I don't think I can say that because
maybe it'll be stupid. Men say stupid things all the time.
Everybody goes, Yosh, good thought.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Joe, Well, I want to ask you about one of
your male colleagues. Yea, you made history as the first
Asian woman to co anchor the CBS Evening News in
nineteen ninety three alongside Dan Rather. Yeah, and you had
a complicated relationship with him. What was it like anchoring
with someone that you're having friction.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
With the relationship was quite superficial in many ways in
that he was on the surface very gracious and friendly.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
But you know, I'm no DOMI.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
I could see behind the facade very easily. I had
known him for years prior to sitting side by side.
In fact, one my girlfriend's Leslie Stall, who is still
in sixty minutes, she said, I don't think he would
have been happy with anyone sharing the seat with him,
(25:09):
because he had had that seat all by himself. Yeah,
for many years. I was more than thrilled to sit
in have a Walter Cronkast's chair, and I never thought
that would ever happen. You know, it was a big
cherry on top of my cake, so I wasn't about
to say no if they.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So you spent all those years proving yourself. When you
finally got that chair, did you finally feel worthy?
Speaker 6 (25:33):
I was under the silly illusion that I was equal
and that the other two anchormen Tom Roclaw and Peter
Jennings considered me to be there equal.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Nah. I now realized.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
That that was really never the case, And of course
makes me sad. I was riding a nice high of
that roller coaster, and it was so much fun to
cover major stories and to believe that there were many
(26:08):
people out there who felt as if I had broken
some ceiling. But unfortunately, you know, we're back to males
anchoring the three network newscasts. Not that three network newscasts
mean anything today. The media has changed so much. The
(26:28):
paradigm has altered our entire media universe.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
It's just not the same.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
I think I was in the news business at the
best time.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You really were, thank so to Neille, and I came
in after her and it was not great.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
You. Yeah, I don't blame you.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
But I think you make a great point though.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I mean, Nora O'Donnell just stepped down from CBS Evening
News and they replaced her with two men. And I mean,
Katie Kuric wrote a op ed about it in the
New York Times.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
It feels like we're going backwards.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:08):
Yeah, it's depressing, it really is. But I don't give
I won't give up. You know, I don't think anybody
should give up. We can find our comfort zones and
our niches, which you all have found so beautifully. You know,
that's one of the reasons why if The bright Side
is sponsored by Witherspoon, Right. I mean, she's pretty not
(27:29):
pretty darn amazed, she's amazing. I mean, look at how
much she has done.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
She's changing the strata.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
She is.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
Yeah, one person, she has changed everything. One woman at
a time, or one program at a time, or one
news outlet at a time, we really can change the
nature of our world. You're listening to the Bride Side
with Connie Chuhn.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Stay with us, and we're back with Connie Chung.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You were really great friends with Barbara Walters, two women
who changed things. Yes, what do you think it was
that connected you to so much?
Speaker 6 (28:20):
I was someone who she very much related to, and
I related to her because I became the breadwinner for
my family and because her father's nightclubs tanked, she became
the breadwinner of her family.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
And so we both had to have our jobs.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
And we put up with the sexism, and she put
up with agism, and I put up with the racism
just because we needed the paycheck. We both adopted a
baby because we both forgot to I mean I forgot
to have a baby first. I forgot to get married.
Then I forgot to have a baby.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Love the wording of that so much. Oh, I forgot.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
To have a baby. No, it really was.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
I had it not been for my husband and said,
I think you want a baby, and I said, no, no, don't.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
Take my baskettol pills away from me. And I said,
I'm a convention to cover an election. To coverage He'd said,
come on, well.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
If anybody knows how babies are made, it's it's Mary.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Rory my baby daddy.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
You betcha.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
And Barbara was the first to co anchor the evening
news on ABC with a guy who despised her, and
I was the first at CBS with a guy who
despised me. We both lasted two years and then we're
we were yanked off. So when when I was dumped,
you know, only she could comfort me. She had this
(29:53):
incredible ability to sort of just say the right thing.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Well, Connie, I feel like you two did what nobody
had done before, and you probably related to each other
in a way nobody else could.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
When I think about her signature, there was always a
question behind the question. She would ask you something, but
she was getting to something else.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
Yes, yes, what was your signature. Oh, unfortunately people would
walk out on me. They weren't expecting a tough question.
Have you ever seen you got to go on YouTube
Bill Gates jumps over a chair from a standing position.
(30:39):
I asked him to do that. You got to see it.
It's hysterical.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
She wanted you to like.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yesterday, as I was brokering this interviewed, yes, but give
me the context.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Why did he Why did you ask him to do that? Oh?
Speaker 6 (30:51):
Because I heard that he could jump over a chair
from a standing position, and so I asked him to
do before we got into the interview. And when I
got into the interview, I was really tough on him
because at the time he was getting a lot of
heat for unceremoniously gobbling up other little companies.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
So he walked out. Yeah, where'd you go?
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Tanya Harding walked out on me? I mean, is there
a number of people walked out on me? And it's
actually I consider it a badge of honor.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Did you feel that way in the moment or is
that something that's come to you as you've looked back on.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
It a little both.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
I mean, I think as soon as it happens, it's
a little bit shocking. I what did I say? Yeah, yeah,
I know that feeling for sure. You know, we started
this conversation with you sharing how you wanted to please
your family and how you wanted to really bring dignity
to the family name and be the standard bearer of
(31:56):
the Chung name and be the son that your family
never had, and that I want to talk to you
about this New York Times article about Generation Connie. It's
about a whole group of young Asian American women from
the eighties who were named Connie as a tribute to you.
And I just think it's so beautiful and poignant and
(32:16):
just magnificent that you wanted to be the son that
your parents never had, and now there's an entire generation
of women who are named after you.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
What does this mean to you?
Speaker 5 (32:31):
It's really quite extraordinary.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
I didn't know when I really got into writing my book.
I didn't know how it was going to end, you know,
I didn't have this perfect to ending. And I mean
there were so many times that I would come home
and say to Maury, you know, I you know what
this guy said to me today, And it was like
(32:57):
those great, wonderful Sissy's Fasic movie is called Crimes of
the Heart, and she played a sister named Babe McGrath.
And when one of her sisters came home, she said,
why why Babe, why did she stick your head in
the oven? And Babe said, Sissy say says.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
I had a bad day. So what I would do
is come home and say, Mari, I had a bad day.
And he would say, do I need to remove the
sharp objects from the kitchen? And I said, I can't
end my book like that. So when a woman named
Connie Cold emailed me, she said when she was about three,
(33:40):
one of her parents had come from China and they
settled in the Midwest. They said to her, at only three,
you need an American name. What name would you like
to be? And she said she knew what she saw
on television, and she said Connie or Elmo her Fortunately,
(34:02):
her parents selected the human instead of the uppet. And
then she became a curious reporter, and she began to
notice this peculiar phenomenon that other people were named Kane.
So she's such a good writer. She wrote this piece,
as you said, for the New York Times opinion section.
(34:23):
When I learned of this, I couldn't believe it. Really,
it was as if a star had fallen out of
the sky. It was as if she were tinker Bell
and she had sprinkled some fairy dust on me and
anointed me with this incredible denuma actually to my book
(34:44):
and giving me the confidence that I actually could possibly
declare success. And because I honestly, this is I think
a Chinese thing and a woman thing. I could never
go I am you know the way men do. I'm
a success. I'm a triple, double, quadruple success. I had this,
(35:06):
I did that. I can't do that. I just could
never do that. But now the Connie generation, because these
parents see me as a success, I think maybe I
can get my arms around this and own it. And
I have girlfriends who keeps saying, would you please own it?
(35:29):
And my husband constantly say you're the Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 5 (35:34):
No I'm not. I really were not.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
For my husband not only determine the paternity of every
child in America, but being so supportive really in building
me up when I was so down. I honestly I
could not have gotten to the end of the tunnel.
(35:59):
You know, it's it's it's a wonderful thing. I say
that everybody needs a mentor or a mouri.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Oh that's so beautiful.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Thanks, he's a good guy.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I do hope you own it, Connie, Connie Chung, thank
you so much for joining us on the bride Side.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Truly one of our brightest best episodes yet.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Yeah, oh, thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Connie Chung is a veteran journalist and former anchor at
CBS News.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Her new memoir Connie, is out.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Now that's it for today's show.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Tomorrow, we're bringing you an encore of our conversation with
Lizzie Mathis, editor in chief of The Cool mom co.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and at
Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.
Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, bestie is today on the bright Side. This conversation
was so nice we had to play it twice. Today
we're bringing you an encore of our chat with legendary
journalist Connie Chung. She tells us about her early days
as a pioneering Asian American journalist, how she code switched
in a male dominated environment, plus her signature word of
advice that might surprise you. It's Monday, December thirtieth. I'm
(00:28):
Simone Boyce, I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine,
a daily show where we come together to share women's stories,
to laugh, learn and brighten your day. On my Mind
Monday is brought to you by Missus Meyers Clean Day
inspired by the goodness of the garden.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's on my Mind Monday, y'all, our opportunity to start
the week off with some fresh energy and something that
motivates us, inspires curiosity, and provides a fresh perspective.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Danielle, what's on your mind today?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Okay, before I tell you what's on my mind, I
have a question for you. Two questions actually, the first
is what compliment means the most to you? And the
second is what compliment is the hardest for you to
take or hear.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
The compliments that mean the most to me have to
do with my brain, my integrity, or my skills as
a parent. And the compliment that's hardest for me to hear,
I actually am.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Or like one that makes you uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Let me read for it makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, oh
my gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I mean I can think of so many compliments that
have been if you can even call it that, you know,
that have been handed to me over the years that
have made me uncomfortable. But I think anything related to
my appearance, it's not even then it makes me uncomfortable.
It's just like, Okay, yeah, I get it, that's the
first thing you notice. But let's go let's go deeper,
you know.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So I think what you just shared is how so
many people feel. And you know, I have that card
game question everything, and that's one of the questions in there.
It's a double question. And I put it in there
because I think compliments and criticism are at the heart
of our relationships and you need the right ratio. So
(02:17):
I read an article recently from Arthur C. Brooks in
The Atlantic Love Him All about compliments and he wrote
this piece called a Compliment That Really Means Something, where
he shares how to properly give a compliment, because he
says that when it's done well, words of praise can
be a soothing balm of human relations, but done poorly,
(02:38):
compliments can be ineffective and even destructive.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Okay, So what does he say is the right way
to give compliments? Okay?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
This is the best part. There's three simple rules. The
first be honest. He says, compliments are usually rejected when
they're not credible or sincere. So before you give somebody
a compliment, you got to ask yourself, do I truly
believe what I'm going to say to this person? You know,
I had a mentor years ago in radio. His name
was ro Con in Chicago, and he said to me,
(03:09):
don't ever forget Danielle. Audiences have a high bullshit meter,
and I've never forgotten it because it's true. And audience is,
you know, anybody's your audience. I think people can really
feel your intentions.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
So true.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So the second rule is make your compliment a pure gift.
Arthur writes that for a compliment to be honest, you
have to make it without asking or expecting anything in return.
And the third is avoid qualification. So don't compare a
person with someone else or with a standard benchmark. So,
for example, don't say something like you look good for
your age or your work is better than I expected.
(03:49):
I actually did this the other day.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
At the end of one of our interviews.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I told somebody that they were different than what I
anticipated them to be.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
In as soon as it flew.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Out of my mouth, I was like, that was the
worst compliment. And I meant it as a compliment, but
it came out so wrong. So I actually really believe
in these three rules.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I want to talk about the make your compliment a
pure gift part. I don't know if I'm down for this,
And I'll tell you what do I mean? If I
tell you I like your outfit, that is my invitation
for you to tell me the details. I'm asking for
the details, sys don't gate keep that's what I expect.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I feel like that's a follow up question.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
I hear you.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know, my grandmother does something that makes me so annoyed.
If anybody tells her that they like her shoes or
her outfit or whatever, she tells them exactly where she
got it. From and exactly how much it cost.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Down to the ninety nine cents, right, yes.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And she's like, oh, I got it on set, and
I'm like, just say thank you, Oma, just say thank you.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
See.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I think that's a generational thing because I do think
that older women, older people, it's mostly older women, like
they want to tell you how good, how deep the
discount was, you know, they want you to know, which
is so funny deal.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
You know. I have one more little addendum because of
what you shared at the beginning of this about compliments
surrounding your appearance. He actually talks about this in the piece,
and he said, even if that's our first instinct, instead
of complimenting somebody's appearance, consider complimenting what psychologists call moral beauty,
so a characteristic that's reflected in courage or forgiveness, or
(05:30):
charity or acts of kindness. And this is a little
bit harder done than said, because if you just meet somebody,
you don't know if they're courageous, you don't know those
types of things. You may just be trying to connect
and say like, hey, I love your shoes. But if
you are complimenting somebody that you know, I think It's
always nice to be really detailed about the compliment and
(05:53):
to give it moral beauty instead of, you know, surface beauty.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
I love this. This, This was such a great thoughts start.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I'm so glad you liked it. Thanks se money Well.
I could give compliments all day to our guest today.
It's the one and only Connie Chung.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
She made history in nineteen ninety three when she became
the first Asian and second woman to ever anchor a
major weekday news program in the US, and her relentless
pursuit of stories landed her exclusive interviews throughout her career,
including one with President Nixon during the Watergate scandal and
another with basketball star Magic Johnson. But navigating this predominantly
(06:31):
white male industry as an Asian woman was not easy,
and Connie Chung experienced a lot of overt sexism and
racism during her career. It's really wild to think about
the sexism being that overt, because I think you and
I hopefully have experienced a more covert form of it,
as conversations around this topic have really.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Escalated in our culture lately.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
But I'm sure things were radically different when Connie Chung
was coming up.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I think about what was overtly and covertly said and
done as I was coming up, and I can't even
imagine what she dealt with. But she details some of
that and a whole lot more in her new memoir
titled Connie, a book that's Connie like you've never seen
her before. After spending so many years telling other people's stories,
(07:24):
She's finally ready to tell her own, and Simon and
I are so excited to hear her tell it in
her own words. It's coming up after the break stick
with us.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Thanks to our partners at missus Myers, you can learn
a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus
Myers's collection of household products are inspired by the garden
and pack a punch against dirt and grime. Visit missus
myers dot com.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Connie Jong, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I tell you how happy I am to be with
you because and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Connie.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
We're so excited to have you. Simone and I are
both journalists and it feels like we have royalty in
the house, So thank you.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
Get out.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Thank you for saying that, But seriously, I've enjoyed your
call them broadcasts for your podcasts. I mean I listened
to a few so that I, you know, be prepared.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Because you're a good journalist.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Well, you know, I think that's key. It really is preparation.
It's disrespectful to me if you do not find out
a little bit about the people who are interviewing you.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, I can't wait to hear some more of your
career secrets. But first I want to start with this.
We've all watched you tell other people's stories for years
on TV, telling Americans stories through tragedy through triumph. Why
did you decide that now was the time to write
a memoir and tell your own story?
Speaker 6 (08:57):
Well, for years I told my husband I wanted to
do stand up to tell my story.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You would be so good at that stand up as
in stand up comedy.
Speaker 6 (09:07):
Yes, but tell my story in a one woman program
I show. And my husband said, absolutely not, you can't
do that. I said, why, you know? You are so wrong?
And I said, are you afraid I'll make a fool
of myself? And he said there is that risk? And
I thought, oh you, And so I decided, he said,
(09:32):
I really think you should write a book first, and
then you can do your stand up.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
And so when I went back and looked at.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
My father had written me a letter and he liked
doing that. He liked writing letters to my sisters. And
ME said we could keep it for posterity. And basically
he said, in his letter, perhaps you can tell this
story of how the Chuang family came to the United States,
(10:01):
and maybe you can carry on the family name the
way boys do. And I thought, well, because he had
written a bit of an autobiography, so I read it
over and I thought, well, maybe I can do that,
particularly because my parents had in China, they had ten children,
five of them died as infants, three of whom were boys,
(10:21):
and girls are not wanted in China, sadly a very
chauvenusic society. So I actually realized that I had taken
him seriously with that mission. So I decided that I
would actually fulfill my parents' dreams and become the son
that they never had because filial piety was so strong
(10:46):
in my very Chinese home. So off I went running
to write my book. My husband would tease me, you
know Maury Maury Povich.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Oh, yeah, we know, Maury.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
We've heard them he's been determining the paternity of every
freaking child in America. Yeah, you know, Maury, yes you
are the father. You are not the father, but I
guarantee you he has a wider vocabulary than that.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I have to tell you.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I don't think it's fair that he told you you're
not allowed to do stand up. Who was Maury Povich
to tell Kddie Chung that precisely?
Speaker 6 (11:24):
I thank you very much, will you I will invite
you over to dinner and you can tell him.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That, oh yea happily, thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Please, Fanny, I know we're all joking around, but you
did say something that really struck me, and you said
you wanted to become the son that the Chung family
didn't have. I'm curious what did that mean to you
throughout your career, because it's beautiful and it's a lot
of pressure.
Speaker 6 (11:50):
At the same time, I was filled with guilt, you know,
good old fashioned guilt that one's parents can lay on
you heavily. But at the same time it really kind
of worked, Danielle, because when I started working, I found
myself in a late nineteen sixties or early seventies among
what I call a sea of men.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
It was all men. Men in the newsroom.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Maybe there was one black male, but there certainly weren't
any minorities.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
And there were.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
Maybe one woman, but not someone who was so young
and thirsty and eager, like an eager beaver. So there
I stood among this sea of primarily white men, who
were my colleagues in the newsroom, who were my competitors
in the field, and the men I was covering because
(12:42):
it was in Washington, d c. Men at the White House,
men on Capitola Hill, men at the Stage Department, men
at the Pentagon. So I decided because as I looked around,
all I saw were guys, I thought, well, why can't
I be one of them? You know, I'm just going
to be a guy, So I'll be this time my
parents never had, but I will perceive myself as a guy.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
There I was.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
They were wearing staid suits with wingships, and they had
stentorian voices, and I was in polyester bell bottom's miniskirts
and stiletto. Was trying to be eyeball because I did
not want to have to look up at them, you know,
it was meaning to do so, so I took on
(13:29):
their characteristics. I had their bravado. I would walk into
a room with confidence. I owned the room. I was bold,
and I was sassy, and I was body and I
had a potty mouth. They didn't know what to do
with me because here I was this little lutus blessom
(13:49):
and I wasn't behaving the way they expected me to
behave like a dautiful little Chinese style, And so taking
pages from their playbook worked for me. I really became
a guy in my mind, so much so that when
I walked past a mirror or a storefront and be
shocked to see a Chinese woman staring back at me.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Connie, you grew up in the DC area in the
fifties and sixties, and that was a time of tremendous
social change. One of the things that I think is
the most gratifying about being a journalist is that you're
a first draft historian.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Oh yes, are.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
There any seminal moments from history that you reported on
that you think about to this day?
Speaker 5 (14:36):
Order game.
Speaker 6 (14:37):
It was an extraordinary time because the presidency was at stake,
very simply, and I think all of us felt the
huge responsibility of not reporting anything inaccurate because the presidency
was at stake, and I covered the House Judiciary Committee
hearings into the impeachment of Richard Dixon. And there's this
(15:00):
iconic photograph of me.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
Have you seen it? Yes, yes you have.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So there's a photograph of one of your meetings with Nixon,
and you were with the other members of the Press corps.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
But everyone else in the shot is a white man. Yeah,
except for you. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Was it crazy at the time? Did anybody notice how
crazy it was? Because we look back on I didn't
think it was crazy.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
Yes, I think that they realized that I was an
art art I was not sitting there like a plant either.
I was vocal. I actually would speak up, and I'd
ask tough questions. And I think my whole being was
so antithetical to what they thought this little China dolls
(15:44):
should be like. It kind of stopped people in their tracks.
But then once they got used to, you know, this
testip person of me, I got some acceptance, but it
was grudging, you know, it is a grudging acceptance. I
(16:05):
continued having to prove myself, which is something that I
find women are perpetually settled with having to prove ourselves,
no matter how old we are. Or how seasoned we are,
or how experienced.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I completely agree with what you said about living a
life of feeling like you have to prove yourself at
every turn, and then when you pivot, you got to
prove it yourself again. And hopefully we live a life
where we are always evolving and always pivoting and always growing.
But I think the most telling part of that equation
for me is who are you trying to prove this too?
(16:44):
Is it to yourself? Is it to other people? Is
it to your family? Who was it for you?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Who is I trying to prove it to? I think
your correct I was trying to prove it to myself.
Not that I had imposterous syndrome. It was just I
wanted to have genuine confidence in myself, which I think
is very hard to do because as a woman and
(17:10):
as someone who's Chinese, I found myself second guessing myself
all the time. I have a perpetual should have could
have what a personality? And when I would come away
from an interview, I'd say, yeah, I should have asked this,
and I should have asked that, and I forgot to
ask this. It's striving for perfection, which I think afflicts
(17:35):
many women because men, I believe, think that they are
perfect already, and I think we're always striving for perfection,
and the sooner we realized that being perfect is not necessary,
that it's actually a somewhat fruitless goal, because there's no
(17:58):
such thing doing anything perfectly.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
During the height of the Me Too movement, you were
asked if you were sexually harassed and your reply was, oh, yeah,
oh sure, yeah, every day. I mean a lot, especially
when I started out and now getting to talk to you,
I understand the intonations of that, but I think that
(18:24):
those experiences shape us, whether we want to admit it
or not.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
When I was starting out.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I just recently started reflecting on this, because when you
have a goal, you just move forward.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
You don't think about things.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
You don't have time to necessarily feel them or reflect.
You just move forward. And in hindsight, I was harassed
so much. Really, Oh my god, what year would you say?
This was twenty thirteen. I started working and I was
harassed up, I'd say through the Me Too movement. Things
(19:00):
changed after that, but I moved into women's spaces, and
I think it was in part because of that. I
didn't want to deal with it anymore. And that was
twenty thirteen. Connie.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I cannot imagine what.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
You dealt with the shouldow would have could have in hindsight,
how do you think about that? Do you wish you
would have dealt with it differently? And what exactly were
people doing and saying?
Speaker 6 (19:26):
The sexist remarks were really pretty blatant, and they were daily,
and it was everything from a super sort of leering
but in a joking fashion. So I had this thing
whereby I would make a joke to them or shock
(19:50):
them with a gotcha before they got me, and so
it was a preemptive strike and it would be so
shocked look to their little virgin ears that I would
that they they couldn't believe that I had the audacity
to say something rude I mean rude to them before
(20:15):
they could to me. And they would, you know, just
sort of be shocked. They had no response. And then
the racist ones were equally as bad. You engage in
yellow journalism, you slant the news and a dragon lady,
and they thought they were the first ones to ever
(20:36):
come up with those phrases. I mean, duh, No, you're
not that clever. I mean, you're not clever at all.
I've heard them all my life.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Did they affect you?
Speaker 2 (20:46):
No?
Speaker 5 (20:47):
You know what.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
I was so focused. It's weird how focused I was.
It broke the tension for me because I was so
freaked and nervous about what I was going to how
I was going to write this story, whether I could
get it done, whether I'd done it correctly. I actually
found it. It was a good mo for me back
(21:10):
in the late sixties and seventies, because it would be
wholly unacceptable today, but back then it was what it was.
I'll tell you one incident when I was covering George
McGovern's campaign against Richard Wilson. I would always be in
my room pretty early so that I could get a
good night's sleep. So the next morning i'd be bright
(21:32):
and cheerful and ask the first question of the candidate.
And then I noticed that a lot of the men
were getting scoops. So I would call the Washington r
and ask the overnight desk what happened overnight so I
can ask the candidate about it. They'd tell me that
there was a big New York Times article or a
(21:52):
big Washington poster Boston glove article, And I thought, how
did they get that story, I realized the guys were
going down to the bar, getting drunk with the campaign
workers and getting them to spill the beans.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
So that did it.
Speaker 6 (22:07):
I was down at the bar, you know, I was
not getting a good night's sleep anymore. I was trying
to drink them under the table. So I took on
these characteristics of the men. Wow, and I just became
one of the guys. One time in the bar, a
guy was so drunk he kept coming around and being
a pest, and finally I looked at him and said,
(22:30):
you don't want to sleep with me. An hour later,
you'll want to do it again. And then the whole
table of guys applauded, and they just knew that I
could come back more badass than they could. And it's
not something to be proud of. It's just it was
(22:52):
my mo to survive.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, you also have that wit, so it worked for you.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Do you feel like you ever got to fully be
yourself because of the ways that you had to, you know,
act like your male colleagues in order to just survive
in that industry.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
As a friend of mine told me, you know, the
first one through the door faces the heaviest gunfire. And
I realized in writing the book that that's what was
happening to me. But yes, I was finally myself. After
weaving through the jungle. I had to cut down a
lot of trees to create a path, but I would
(23:33):
whack them, you know, right and left. But I still
took pages from the male playbook, like, for instance, Madeline
Albright said one time she was the first woman's Secretary
of State. She said when she was on the National
Security Council, she was afraid to speak up. Can you
imagine Meddleine Aubry afraid to speak up? She said she
(23:53):
would sit there and some guy would say the same
thing she was thinking, and she'd go, darn, I should
have said it.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
And you know, I realized that's what I do. I
get Frae.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
You know, I don't think I can say that because
maybe it'll be stupid. Men say stupid things all the time.
Everybody goes, Yosh, good thought.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Joe, Well, I want to ask you about one of
your male colleagues. Yea, you made history as the first
Asian woman to co anchor the CBS Evening News in
nineteen ninety three alongside Dan Rather. Yeah, and you had
a complicated relationship with him. What was it like anchoring
with someone that you're having friction.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
With the relationship was quite superficial in many ways in
that he was on the surface very gracious and friendly.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
But you know, I'm no DOMI.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
I could see behind the facade very easily. I had
known him for years prior to sitting side by side.
In fact, one my girlfriend's Leslie Stall, who is still
in sixty minutes, she said, I don't think he would
have been happy with anyone sharing the seat with him,
(25:09):
because he had had that seat all by himself. Yeah,
for many years. I was more than thrilled to sit
in have a Walter Cronkast's chair, and I never thought
that would ever happen. You know, it was a big
cherry on top of my cake, so I wasn't about
to say no if they.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So you spent all those years proving yourself. When you
finally got that chair, did you finally feel worthy?
Speaker 6 (25:33):
I was under the silly illusion that I was equal
and that the other two anchormen Tom Roclaw and Peter
Jennings considered me to be there equal.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Nah. I now realized.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
That that was really never the case, And of course
makes me sad. I was riding a nice high of
that roller coaster, and it was so much fun to
cover major stories and to believe that there were many
(26:08):
people out there who felt as if I had broken
some ceiling. But unfortunately, you know, we're back to males
anchoring the three network newscasts. Not that three network newscasts
mean anything today. The media has changed so much. The
(26:28):
paradigm has altered our entire media universe.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
It's just not the same.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
I think I was in the news business at the
best time.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You really were, thank so to Neille, and I came
in after her and it was not great.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
You. Yeah, I don't blame you.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
But I think you make a great point though.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I mean, Nora O'Donnell just stepped down from CBS Evening
News and they replaced her with two men. And I mean,
Katie Kuric wrote a op ed about it in the
New York Times.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
It feels like we're going backwards.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:08):
Yeah, it's depressing, it really is. But I don't give
I won't give up. You know, I don't think anybody
should give up. We can find our comfort zones and
our niches, which you all have found so beautifully. You know,
that's one of the reasons why if The bright Side
is sponsored by Witherspoon, Right. I mean, she's pretty not
(27:29):
pretty darn amazed, she's amazing. I mean, look at how
much she has done.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
She's changing the strata.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
She is.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
Yeah, one person, she has changed everything. One woman at
a time, or one program at a time, or one
news outlet at a time, we really can change the
nature of our world. You're listening to the Bride Side
with Connie Chuhn.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Stay with us, and we're back with Connie Chung.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You were really great friends with Barbara Walters, two women
who changed things. Yes, what do you think it was
that connected you to so much?
Speaker 6 (28:20):
I was someone who she very much related to, and
I related to her because I became the breadwinner for
my family and because her father's nightclubs tanked, she became
the breadwinner of her family.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
And so we both had to have our jobs.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
And we put up with the sexism, and she put
up with agism, and I put up with the racism
just because we needed the paycheck. We both adopted a
baby because we both forgot to I mean I forgot
to have a baby first. I forgot to get married.
Then I forgot to have a baby.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Love the wording of that so much. Oh, I forgot.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
To have a baby. No, it really was.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
I had it not been for my husband and said,
I think you want a baby, and I said, no, no, don't.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
Take my baskettol pills away from me. And I said,
I'm a convention to cover an election. To coverage He'd said,
come on, well.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
If anybody knows how babies are made, it's it's Mary.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Rory my baby daddy.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
You betcha.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
And Barbara was the first to co anchor the evening
news on ABC with a guy who despised her, and
I was the first at CBS with a guy who
despised me. We both lasted two years and then we're
we were yanked off. So when when I was dumped,
you know, only she could comfort me. She had this
(29:53):
incredible ability to sort of just say the right thing.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Well, Connie, I feel like you two did what nobody
had done before, and you probably related to each other
in a way nobody else could.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
When I think about her signature, there was always a
question behind the question. She would ask you something, but
she was getting to something else.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
Yes, yes, what was your signature. Oh, unfortunately people would
walk out on me. They weren't expecting a tough question.
Have you ever seen you got to go on YouTube
Bill Gates jumps over a chair from a standing position.
(30:39):
I asked him to do that. You got to see it.
It's hysterical.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
She wanted you to like.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yesterday, as I was brokering this interviewed, yes, but give
me the context.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Why did he Why did you ask him to do that? Oh?
Speaker 6 (30:51):
Because I heard that he could jump over a chair
from a standing position, and so I asked him to
do before we got into the interview. And when I
got into the interview, I was really tough on him
because at the time he was getting a lot of
heat for unceremoniously gobbling up other little companies.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
So he walked out. Yeah, where'd you go?
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Tanya Harding walked out on me? I mean, is there
a number of people walked out on me? And it's
actually I consider it a badge of honor.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Did you feel that way in the moment or is
that something that's come to you as you've looked back on.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
It a little both.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
I mean, I think as soon as it happens, it's
a little bit shocking. I what did I say? Yeah, yeah,
I know that feeling for sure. You know, we started
this conversation with you sharing how you wanted to please
your family and how you wanted to really bring dignity
to the family name and be the standard bearer of
(31:56):
the Chung name and be the son that your family
never had, and that I want to talk to you
about this New York Times article about Generation Connie. It's
about a whole group of young Asian American women from
the eighties who were named Connie as a tribute to you.
And I just think it's so beautiful and poignant and
(32:16):
just magnificent that you wanted to be the son that
your parents never had, and now there's an entire generation
of women who are named after you.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
What does this mean to you?
Speaker 5 (32:31):
It's really quite extraordinary.
Speaker 6 (32:33):
I didn't know when I really got into writing my book.
I didn't know how it was going to end, you know,
I didn't have this perfect to ending. And I mean
there were so many times that I would come home
and say to Maury, you know, I you know what
this guy said to me today, And it was like
(32:57):
those great, wonderful Sissy's Fasic movie is called Crimes of
the Heart, and she played a sister named Babe McGrath.
And when one of her sisters came home, she said,
why why Babe, why did she stick your head in
the oven? And Babe said, Sissy say says.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
I had a bad day. So what I would do
is come home and say, Mari, I had a bad day.
And he would say, do I need to remove the
sharp objects from the kitchen? And I said, I can't
end my book like that. So when a woman named
Connie Cold emailed me, she said when she was about three,
(33:40):
one of her parents had come from China and they
settled in the Midwest. They said to her, at only three,
you need an American name. What name would you like
to be? And she said she knew what she saw
on television, and she said Connie or Elmo her Fortunately,
(34:02):
her parents selected the human instead of the uppet. And
then she became a curious reporter, and she began to
notice this peculiar phenomenon that other people were named Kane.
So she's such a good writer. She wrote this piece,
as you said, for the New York Times opinion section.
(34:23):
When I learned of this, I couldn't believe it. Really,
it was as if a star had fallen out of
the sky. It was as if she were tinker Bell
and she had sprinkled some fairy dust on me and
anointed me with this incredible denuma actually to my book
(34:44):
and giving me the confidence that I actually could possibly
declare success. And because I honestly, this is I think
a Chinese thing and a woman thing. I could never
go I am you know the way men do. I'm
a success. I'm a triple, double, quadruple success. I had this,
(35:06):
I did that. I can't do that. I just could
never do that. But now the Connie generation, because these
parents see me as a success, I think maybe I
can get my arms around this and own it. And
I have girlfriends who keeps saying, would you please own it?
(35:29):
And my husband constantly say you're the Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 5 (35:34):
No I'm not. I really were not.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
For my husband not only determine the paternity of every
child in America, but being so supportive really in building
me up when I was so down. I honestly I
could not have gotten to the end of the tunnel.
(35:59):
You know, it's it's it's a wonderful thing. I say
that everybody needs a mentor or a mouri.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Oh that's so beautiful.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Thanks, he's a good guy.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I do hope you own it, Connie, Connie Chung, thank
you so much for joining us on the bride Side.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Truly one of our brightest best episodes yet.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Yeah, oh, thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Connie Chung is a veteran journalist and former anchor at
CBS News.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Her new memoir Connie, is out.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Now that's it for today's show.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Tomorrow, we're bringing you an encore of our conversation with
Lizzie Mathis, editor in chief of The Cool mom co.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and at
Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.
Host
Simone Boyce
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