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Connie Chung

Constance Yu-Hwa Chung, 宗毓華, pinyin: Zōng Yùhuá, (born August 20, 1946) is a Chinese American television news anchor-woman. She grew up in Washington D.C. as the daughter of a high ranking KMT diplomat from the Republic of China.

Her real breakthrough in television news came when she anchored the evening news program at the Los Angeles affiliate of CBS, KNXT (now KCBS). Chung's network television career has been with CBS, NBC, and CNN. On June 1, 1993 she became the second woman (after Barbara Walters) to co-anchor a major network's national news broadcast (with CBS). The teaming did not prove a commercial success.

After her unsuccessful co-anchoring stint with Dan Rather, she began to do independent interviews—a field which would soon become her trademark. As an interviewer, Chung displayed a distinct style. Her interrogations were largely casual and gentle, but would often be punctuated by a rapid-fire barrage of sharp questions. They were decidedly softer than those of other interviewers, such as Barbara Walters or Mike Wallace. Consequently, her interviews were often used as a PR move by those looking to overcome scandal or controversy.

Connie Chung became the center of unwanted media attention in the 1990s as she and her husband and fellow TV personality Maury Povich tried, unsuccessfully, to have a baby.

Some of her more famous interviews include ones with Claus von Bülow and Gary Condit. In an interview with Marianne Gingrich , mother of conservative politician Newt Gingrich, Chung became infamous for using portions of an interview, after telling Mrs. Gingrich "just between you and me" and asking for opinions about Hillary Clinton. Her last interview of consequence was with congressman Gary Condit, on his relationship with murdered Washington D.C. intern Chandra Levy.

She briefly had her own show on CNN entitled Connie Chung Tonight. She was criticized for her awkward interviews. CNN changed her show from live to pre-taped to make the show flow better. Altough it did moderately well in the ratings, her show was canceled after the war in Iraq. During the war, her only role was to read some headlines. After asking CNN to put her show back on as soon as posible, they went ahead and took her show off the air even though she had time left on her contract. CNN founder Ted Turner called her show in an interview, "Just awful."



Last updated: 02-07-2005 08:24:22
Last updated: 05-03-2005 09:00:33