Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Why Our Current News Media is in the Toilet & How the Legendary Connie Chung Changed Media

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

LEGENDARY Journalist Connie Chung Shattered the Chains of her Cultural Traditions and Navigated the News Waters in a Sea of Men.   Now she's opening up about being sexually abused by her doctor as a teenager, her deep desire to be "one of the guys", and why she thinks current news media is in the toilet.   She reveals how she conquered the male-dominated realms of journalism and politics, the clever ways she combated sexism and racism in the newsroom, how she managed to keep her emotions in check while delivering impartial news that shaped our world, and her struggles with tying her self worth to her career.   Hear about Connie's wild stakeouts during the Watergate scandal, the reason she was forced to cover controversial figures like Tonya Harding & OJ Simpson, and her longtime marriage to daytime talk show host Maury Povich!   Connie Chung also breaks down: - Her parents’ arranged marriage at a very early age & the loss of her older siblings - How she broke out of the mindset of the traditional Chinese caste system - Dangers of being seen as a feminist when she began & what feminism mean to her now - Her first big news break - Importance of neutrality & credible fact-checking in the news media - Challenges women in media face today   It's no wonder why so many Asian-American parents continue to name their kids after THE Connie Chung!   Don’t miss this exclusive look into the life of a trailblazer - TUNE IN to MBB today!   Connie Chung's Book, CONNIE: A Memoir: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/connie-chung/connie/9781538767009/   Ground News: Go to http://groundnews.com/break to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan.     BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was morphing into the man I wanted to be. I felt I had to be. It was so incredibly male-dominated. I mean, I really did literally look around the newsroom. And I saw all men. And then the people I was covering in Washington were men at the White House, at the Pentagon, at the State Department, on Capitol Hill. My gosh, it was filled with men.

They're treating me like I'm a little lotus blossom, and I'm not a lotus blossom. And I'm not going to be treated like a lot of. lotus blossom. I think to myself, can't I just be one of them? Going to a bar, even in the afternoon, with the guys and trying to drink

them under the table with draft beer. I had the worst potty mouth and they would be shocked. I was going to tell a better dirty joke than they did. If they were going to throw something sexist or racist at me, I would do it to them before they did it to me. I don't see me. I don't

know that I'm a Chinese woman, I'll take on their persona. I'll be bold. I'll be scrappy. I will command respect the way they do when they walk into a room simply because they are men. I will take on all of the pages from their playbook and become one of them. I was so convinced myself that when I walk past a mirror, I'd go, just a Chinese woman there. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down. Hey, I just found out something astounding.

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so that you know when a new episode drops. Thank you so much, and on to the episode. Hi, I'm I'm Biallik. And I'm objective news reporter, Jonathan Cohen. We're here today to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing our nation. Is democracy dying? Does truth matter?

Is there truth to be found, or is all news just a political? campaign governed by the incentive structure of corporate media. Jonathan, everyone just fell asleep while you were asking that question because they were waiting to find out, are women perpetually subjugated as a mechanism of the marital structure of this country? They're also wondering, am I the father? If you're wondering what fabulous guest could bring all of these things together,

it is none other than Connie Chung. Legendary Connie Chung. Legendary Connie Chung. She just wrote a memoir, Connie, a memoir, which is an awesome title. For those of you who may not be familiar with Connie Chung, she shattered, in her own words, the bamboo ceiling, paved the way for women and Asian women in particular. In 1969, at the age of 23, she took her first job at a local TV station in her hometown of D.C. And began working as a CBS News correspondent.

she ended up covering some of the most important and fascinating events of our time. She covered the Watergate scandal, which was when Richard Nixon, essentially, by proxy, was spying on members of the Democratic National Convention and tried to cover it up and was eventually impeached over it. She was a household name. She was the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News, the first Asian to anchor any news program in the country. And true story, an entire generation of Asian women were actually named after her, which she discovered very recently. But in this memoir, she talks about growing up as one of 10 children. Her parents were in a ranged marriage. She was the only child born in America. She talks about how she broke into the industry,

which was at that time all white men, how she adopted a persona in her own words of really acting like a man so that she could gain respect. She talks about being sexual. abused by a doctor, something that she hid for decades and decades. And she talks about the change in our culture, in how we view neutrality, how we view news, how we view women, and what she has to offer for us as a generation growing up in a completely different time of how the news is presented to us. So well said, she also, just in terms of the news stories, she covered OJ. She covered the first interview with Magic Johnson after he announced that he had HIV

and she was the one to ask him, where did you get it from? I mean, she's interviewed some of the most famous people in history. If you didn't catch my reference of, Am I the Father? Connie is married to Mori Popovich. He hosted Current Affair, which is one of my favorite news shows,

but then went on to host the Mori Povich show, which was that show where he would reveal paternity on camera. That's who she's married to for so many. years. And whatever you think of the Mori Popovit show, he was well ahead of his time in terms of sensationalized television, getting ratings, and he was really a cultural staple for tens of millions of Americans. And so this is really a powerhouse couple in news arenas in so many ways. Wow, I never ever thought in my life growing up watching Connie Chung on television that I would get to say, Connie Chung, welcome to the breakdown. Break in that.

It's such an honor to get to talk to you. We're thrilled that we get to interview the great interviewer. And I said to Jonathan, I feel incredibly intimidated because, I mean, I literally, I grew up watching you. I was born in 1975 and I was, you know, raised in a home where we read the New York Times and we watched the news. That's what happened in our house. And you were such a powerful image, obviously, for so many of many generations. But in particular, you know, for someone of my age growing up, you know, in Hollywood, getting to see a strong, intelligent woman, you know, holding your own with some of the, you know, the most kind of culturally intimidating men of so many decades. It's just really, it's so incredible to get to talk to you.

We're really honored you're here. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. Thank you. I will make a point of calling you every time I'm feeling a little down. You know, that was great. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it was very, very honest. Also, I'm a huge fan of your husband, but I didn't know that you were married to him until, like, well into the 90s. And I just was one of those people who kind of had followed his career. And it blew my mind that two people, of, you know, a certain amount of like news and public stature could be together for so freaking long. I had no idea.

Well, you know what? I can't believe it either, you know, I'm saying to myself, he actually, Mari Pubbush has been determining the paternity of every child in America. But he has a wider vocabulary than you are the father or you are not the father. Right. Because he was actually started out as a journalist. Right. And for many, many years, he did a traditional talk show in Washington, D.C., you know, where politicians and authors and Julia, even Julia Trill would come and he'd do a cooking segment with her. So he became quite a voracious reader.

And over the years, I would see him creating this massive library in our apartment. And so I asked him, what memoir would you recommend that I read to sort of create the same feeling, the tone and what have you? and he said personal history by Catherine Graham. She was the lone woman publisher of the Washington Post during a period in which there were no, not really, there was maybe one other woman publisher. But she was at a particularly difficult time. She was the publisher during the Pentagon Papers

and the Watergate scandal. And she had a lot of ups and downs in her life. and I found myself at the end of her book just all the way to the end, I was rooting for her. And I thought, what do I do about, I don't want to cry in my suit. She never did in her book. She didn't, she was never, woe was me.

So that's what I decided I would try and pattern my book after. So the book, which also is the most awesome title ever, because it just says, Connie, a memoir. The book is, it definitely, you know, takes us through, I mean, a bit of your, you know, a bit of your family's history, which I think is really critically important to understand and you really address it in a very appropriate way. You know, your parents come from really another time and not just be. Because they were immigrants and you were, I believe, the only of your siblings born in America. Is that correct? Correct. Yes.

But your parents really come from another time. I think you described it as, you know, your mother married a man who wanted nothing to do with her. Yes. And they had 10 children, five of whom passed, correct? Yes, as babies. Oh. And three of them were boys. It was, and in China, you don't want girls.

I mean, we're totally second, third class, fourth class citizens. It was people like you, Jonathan, who were coveted because you were male. If you knew a little bit more about Jonathan, I don't know if you would say that he was the covenant one. Wow. Wow. Rander. Yeah, thanks a lot, right? What would all the Coens be saying now?

But my mother's feet were bound, their marriage was arranged, they had never seen each other when they were engaged at 12 and 14. They had not met until the day they got married at age of 17 and 19. And she was perpetually subjugated. as a female. And so when they came to the United States and I was yet another girl, they went, oh dear. So what do we do about that?

Well, nothing. One day my father wrote me a letter and said, maybe someday you can tell how the Chung family came to the United States and what exactly? you know, say how they came. And it's a harrowing story, isn't it, my... Yeah. Well, absolutely. And I think also the sort of context, you know, I mean, perpetually subjugated, right? That was the story for... My grandparents are immigrants to this country. And, you know, my grandmother wouldn't have even known the words perpetually or subjugated.

But your duty as a wife was very, very specific. And what was... interesting to me is that that's kind of one level of grief, but for your mother to lose children and especially to lose that many children while also being expected to keep having children and then raising those children is this whole other level of grief that kind of is the stew, right, that all of you girls were raised in. How perfectly you put it. You really did. I wish I had written it like that. It was really good. Good at living, too.

It was. It was she really lived a hard life being a dutiful Chinese wife. It was not fair. Never, never fair to her. And her life changed so dramatically when she came to the United States because she had actually grown up somewhat privileged and, you know, there were servants at home. And that's not because we were way, way high class or anything.

It was just that there was a caste system in China whereby if you were middle class business people, you could have a cook and maids and nannies and all of that because of this horrific caste system. And so I always say, felt my mother never got her due at all. I mean, at all. And sadly, she was illiterate

because women didn't go to school, really. I mean, they could up to a point, but then they really were instructed to stay home and knit and sew and play mahjong. I happen to enjoy Mahjong. International, not American. You do? I do. Oh my gosh. Good for you. I have, I have two, I have not one, but two sets. I own two mahjong sets. I want to get a mahjong table because then you can build your wall. It like helps you build the wall and I really want one anyway. Yes. Not your problem,

but I'm just telling you, I want one. No, but you know what? I found an old mahjong table at a at a crummy little antique store. Wow. Yeah, it's very cool. I mean, it's just square. It's like a card table. No, it's a very special table, though. Mm-hmm. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful.

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Right now, it's $199 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. I'm going to ask a question, and I don't, I don't mean it to sound harsh. But given the sort of of role model that you had, you know, given the fact that you said your sisters really took a

pretty traditional trajectory. And I think the way you said it was if they hadn't been busy being dutiful wives, they might have had their own careers. They would have. Yes, my, I am, they would have. Yeah. So the question that I have is, why you, what felt to you like anything else was possible when what had been shown to you was that it wasn't? Very good question. I don't know. I do know that they, they suffocated me, those bossy hormonal sisters. They were always telling me what to do and what to say. So when they finally got married and left the nest,

I felt liberating, truly. I felt as if I could blossom finally, because they really overpowered me with their, they were balsy, downright balsy. And I, and they took their balls with them. So I got to grow mine, my own, my very own. And when I decided I wanted to go into the business, I just happened to be working as an interim.

on Capitol Hill. So I saw the pulse beat of the nation right before me. And my rock stars were the senators and Congress people. And news was so prevalent in my home, just like you. But I read the Washington Post and watched Uncle Walter, Walter Cryped on the news. We would gather just the way you did. It was appointment television. We'd sit down and watch the news together.

And so I decided that that's where I would go pursue a career because I was a bad girl in college. I was having loads of fun. What does Connie Chung fun look like? Oh, at the time, it was drinking. I mean, trying to drink the guys under the table, going to a bar, even in the afternoon. with the guys and trying to drink them under the table with draft beer.

And I would go to the student union and play pool. So I was already morphing into the man I wanted to be. I mean, I felt I had to be. Yeah, can you frame that a little bit? Because, you know, for those of us of a certain age, I'm 48. And, you know, a lot of us of this age, you know, I consider myself a second way feminist, you know, I'm sort of like you were my woman. And when a lot of us see kind of young feminism and third way feminism and fourth way feminism and, you know, a lot of us joke to each other, like, they think they have such intact. They're entitled to be respected.

Like, it's fascinating, right? that they're astounded if someone makes a comment about them being attractive. And they're so bold to be like, that's not acceptable. And it's kind of funny because there were so many different ways that we were raised to be. And while you're a bit older than me, I was raised in a very similar kind of milieu, you know. What is it like to try and see that no one looks like you on television and believe that you can be that. but also know you have to compete in that? I think I blindly walked into it, not thinking.

I mean, I'm 78, you're 48. So it was such, just like you were saying, it was such a different world than it is today, that it was so incredibly male-dominated. I mean, I really did literally look around the room, the newsroom, for instance, and I saw all men. Maybe there was one black male. And then I looked, the competing reporters were all men.

And then the people I was covering in Washington were men at the White House, at the Pentagon, at the State Department, on Capitol Hill. My gosh, it was filled with men. So, you know, since I'm the one who's on the looking out at the men, I'm on a wall looking out at them. I think to myself, why can't I just be one of them? I mean, I don't see me.

I don't know that I'm a Chinese woman. And so I decided I'll take on their persona. I'll be bold. I'll be scrappy. I will walk into a room and own it the way they do. I will command respect the way they do when they walk into a room simply because they're. They are men.

So I will take on all of the pages from their playbook and become one of them. I was so convinced myself that when I walk past a mirror, I'd go, just a Chinese woman there. And so it was kind of, yeah, call me crazy. But I would, I didn't think that. I could not do it. And I had this photo and the moxie that I don't have today. I just mustered it because I knew I had to. I'm fascinated about how you built this realization

because in the movie version of you, Sandra O would have looked around, she would have seen all these men, she would have looked in the mirror, and then she would have had to say, okay, she would have gone home and say, in order to compete, I need to do this and the sort of plan would have formulated. Was it an all at once realization?

Was it because it sounds like you built this really very complex and detailed internal plan about how the persona you needed to build. But describe to us how that sort of formed because it's fascinating and very powerful. Well, no, it was just born out of necessity. In other words, I didn't have a plan. And I didn't say to myself, I am now going to take on all the characteristics of a man. No, I looked around and said, what the heck do I do? You know, they're treating me like I'm a little lotus blossom, and I'm not a lotus blossom.

And I'm not going to be treated like a lotus blossom. So it was almost as if I had gone to the Millicent Busy Body School of Journalism and learned how to have a potty mouth. I had the worst potty mouth, and they would be shocked at the words that I would drop. They'd be taken so aback by the fact that I did not hesitate. And I don't recommend it. It's not that I'm saying this is what young women should do.

It was a, honestly, I was just trying to survive. So I got this. attitude that I was going to tell a better dirty joke than they did. I mean, not literally, but if they were going to throw something sexist or racist at me, I would do it to them before they did it to me. And at that time, my brain was not as mushy as it is now in my 70s. I was able to do a comeback. Like, I can't believe I came back with all these lines.

and because I'm so old, I can remember the lights. You know, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember those crazy lines that I would throw out at various people. So I'd put many of them in the book. So one of the things you talk about, and this sort of relates to what I'm going to ask next, you know, you talk about, you know, a particularly astounding and egregious and horrendous thing

that happened to you at the hands of the doctor who actually was the doctor when you were born. Yes, he delivered me. Yes, and when you were in college, and this is a secret that you kept for decades and decades, and you revealed that you had been assaulted by this doctor, and you talk about it in the book, and you chose to write an op-ed about it during the Kavanaugh hearings, which was incredibly brave and really inspirational. But what I think is interesting is, knowing that that was the climate that you lived in, that when you went to the doctor,

something like that might happen and you have no one to tell and you're not even sure if you'll be believed, that is so fascinating to me that that also produced Connie Chung, who, you know, went into newsrooms knowing that being female could be dangerous. And your attractiveness is part of the story. because you were, you got a lot of attention. You had to know sort of where, here's the question,

where did you start to understand your sexual power lay? Meaning when could it be protective for you? When did it intimidate you or others? How did you learn to manage that? Well, it was like machine got fire. So I found myself, you know, it's this look that all women recognize when a man looks at you and they're not going to ask you, you know, what book are you reading? They're just, I call it, and forgive me, but I call it, I could see the sperm swimming in their eyes. and it's like, it's like, it's going like a million miles an hour, you know.

And as soon as I see that look, I would say to myself, oh, okay, I got to do something. I got to say something quickly. And I don't think it had everything to do with the way I appeared. I think it happens to everyone. on. And it doesn't matter who we are, what we look like or whatever, if we are walking around in a skirt or even not a skirt. It's, we know that look and we have to find a way to deal with it. I found that just being the only woman among a sea of men, it was pretty obvious that I was an art vark.

And so I had to just kind of deal with it. And it wasn't any big, to me it wasn't any big deal. I was just trying to get my job done. And I just wanted to be as good as they were. What did you perceive as sort of the status of women, versus men, right, when the bar is, I want to be as good as they are. And the fact is, men aren't necessarily better. They just have had more opportunity, right, to be in that arena. So what did that mean to you? Well, in writing this book, I finally understood that, or it came to the conclusion,

that we were given such a tiny sliver of the big pie that the men owned the, the entire pie. But when women were hired in the television news business, certainly, we were given a skinny little hair thin sliver. And that would cause us to have to share it, which was not healthy either. Because when we, you know, the natural inclination when you have to share

is a lack of cooperation, on the part of some people. So I found that I wanted to find some higher-up female or people who I could commiserate with, but there weren't any. And the only one in the Washington Bureau at CBS actually was Leslie Saul. And she has remained friends. We are still friends to the state,

even though we were both old farts. And we have lunch at least once a year. And we're not for Leslie, but she was, it's not as if we had time to commiserate. I just knew what she was doing and what she was battling, and I knew what I was doing and battling. And it just wasn't a case of being able to sneak off and, you know, tell each other our horrendous stories. And also, by the way, I was determined just from the beginning that there is no crying in baseball.

There is no crying in news. You do not run to the ladies' room and cry. Oh, my, I wanted to say, you know, you were talking about these different waves of feminism. Back when I was starting, I couldn't even go there. In other words, it would be a criminal. if I even would utter the word. I mean, if I suggested that Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan or any of them were people that I admired, I couldn't go there.

And Leslie didn't feel she could go there either. we could not be tagged with being a feminist. And so anything we did, we just did subtly. But I mean, I think even today, it's very hard for women to burn their bra. they just, you know, end up on the wrong side of the tracks, which is ridiculous. Can you talk about some of the names that women were called? You know, my mom was called a bitch before it was a popular term and something that, you know, women were reclaiming.

And what it meant was a woman who spoke her mind, didn't take nonsense from people and didn't appreciate being felt up on the subway. That was called a bitch. Can you talk about some of the sort of euphemisms that you heard for the kind of woman you were or the kind of women that worked in news at that time? You know, for me, it was always a sexual innuendo because I actually tried to avoid being a bitch. I didn't want to be called the B-word. I didn't want to be considered someone who was uncooperative.

I really was a double dose of dutifulness being a woman and being a Chinese. So I tried not to be that dutiful, but honestly, in the end, I realized after I compiled everything in my book that I was much too dutiful, I regret greatly not standing up for myself. But what would happen is that the usually male, I mean always male superior person, would grind me and grind me and grind me until I would, okay, you know, I'll do the right thing. This is for the team.

Take one for the team. And I think there were times maybe, I'm trying to think. I think Leslie fought that a little better than I did because she had a little more experience that I did. She had already been around the track a couple times. But you know, one time we had lunch and she said, I said, you did it the right way, Leslie. You know, you're still working today on 60 minutes. And she said, no, she said, I, she said, you took risks. And every time I'd threatened to leave, I wouldn't leave.

I would stay. And she said, but you'd threaten to leave and you'd leave. So it was so interesting that we, you know, were contemporaries, and we sort of took our paths were different paths. Can you talk a little bit about sort of what your first break was and then what some of the things were that would come up that would kind of mean that you had to take one for the team? The big break was when I was working at a local station in Washington, D.C.

And a Tony French restaurant in D.C. was cited for unsanitary conditions. It was unthinkable. So I barred into the restaurant, demanded to see the owner. and with cameras rolling, you know, a la Mike Wallace in 60 minutes, and said, why did you get this unsanitary rating? And there was a Washington Bureau chief of CBS News, a man named Bill Small favored that restaurant. It was called La Provenzao, and he was there having lunch.

He saw me in action, and he gave me his card, and he said, call me. So you got to time this. You know, well, let's see. He finishes lunch. Then he goes back to the office. How much time should I give him? I gave him 20 minutes. And he said, I called him in 20 minutes, and he hired me.

So that was my big break. And I think Bill was a very, very. he was invested in the women. He decided to engage in a preemptive strike because the drumbeat of higher women and higher minorities was really getting louder and louder. So he hired four women. Leslie Stahl, me, Michelle Clark,

African-American or black woman, as we say now, and Sylvia Chase. And the four of us were hired at CBS, but Leslie and I were the only two in the Washington Bureau. And that was the first wave of women hired. And another wave didn't occur. That was in the 1970s, 71. Another wave didn't occur until the 1980s. Good gosh.

A decade later, finally, more women were hired. And now it's better, but still hasn't reached a little. level of parity. Can you talk about some of what your life was like during the Watergate scandal? I was sent out on these things called stakeouts, which means you try to catch a Watergate figure as he's going to work or as he's coming home. And then in between, I'd cover like the Senate Watergate hearings or the House Judiciary Committee hearings into the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Oh, can I show you a picture?

This is the hardback. And can you see this picture? Yes, I love this picture. Isn't it hysterical? I'm among a sea of men. A lot of sideburns. And I look bushed because I don't know why, but it's a lot of. the Capitol Hill photographer, Dev O'Neill, took this picture, and I remembered keeping it because it was pretty iconic. I call it the Sea of Men because I found myself surrounded by all these men, and a friend of mine put it on, I guess, Instagram, or Facebook or something.

She called it hashtag mood. And mood in today's parlance means I've been there. That is so me. So anyway. And during Watergate, I would have to, like, with a Watergate figure, post myself outside the person's home at 5.30 in the morning and try and ask them about the latest story that was appearing in the Washington Post written by Woodward and Bernstein.

So it was a, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you? And then they would jump into the car and speed away and not say anything. But that was television. Stupid. No, very, very ridiculous, just to get a shot of either H.R. Holderman or John Dean or John Ehrlichman, the sort of height circle around Richard Nixon. So Richard Nixon is a great place

for us to kind of move into my next set of questions about neutrality and what news anchors are supposed to do, what they provide, what their service is. You know, I was raised in a union family. My grandparents were sweatshop workers. My grandfather's favorite thing to talk about in his very heavy Polish accent

was that Richard Nixon was a crook. You know, like that was the sort of like story for a lot of us who were raised that, that he was this, I mean, a very exceptional president in terms of what the Watergate scandal revealed. But this is sort of my question. And, you know, I'm asking it in light of what we sort of see happens now in the news. Your job as a reporter, right, is to report the news. But I'm curious, was there a notion of, I'm in the middle of a scandal that's going to shape, you know, this presidency, this era,

like what he did is wrong, he's a crook. You know, you had to maintain neutrality. How were you sort of raised as a journalist? Because it's so different now. And I'm wondering what it was like then, what it meant to you and how you kind of got there. And were there ever times when you did have opinions, but there wasn't a place for that as a reporter? Since I was early on trained by the best of the best, it was the CBS News, Washington Bureau was considered the Tiffany staff.

Not only was CBS the Tiffany Network, but that collection of reporters and correspondents and were considered the crem jala cram. So I was, my training was, my training, wheels were on the entire five years that I covered Capitol Hill in the White House with these men who ended up being very, as you noted, wonderful to me, actually. Some of them were incredibly competitive, but nonetheless, it created a climate which I understood. It was just the job to compete and to kill your colleagues and to kill your colleagues and to kill.

kill the, you know, especially at CBS, they used to say the saints on the rug in NBC are coffee, but the saints on the rug of industrial carpet at CBS is blood. So when we covered Watergate, we could tell that it was the story of the decade because the presidency was at stake. we could not get anything wrong. So that bureau chief who had hired me, Bill Small, he instituted stringent rules. We had to have two firsthand sources of information before we reported something so-called anonymously.

If I had had a deep throat the way Woodard and Merdstein did, I would have had to have had another source besides steep throat to tell me something before I'd be allowed to report it. So those days were, we knew the rules. We would not precipitously put something on the air. We were never allowed to express our opinion. In fact, that's one of the problems I had writing this, book because when I started writing it and I submitted what is commonly called the shitty first draft

of the editor looked at it and said, you're just giving me the facts. I said, no, but that's what I do. And she said, no, no, this is your memoir. You have to tell everyone how you feel. How I feel. I can't do that. I never have. So it was very hard for me to jump over that hurdle and try and eke at feelings. You know, it felt like a louncinger feelings. Can you explain a little bit? Why not? Why not have feelings? Well, as a journalist, you just can't.

I mean, and right now the paradigm had. has changed. And the pendulum has swung way off the deep end with people I don't care for or don't care to read or to listen to. But there are plenty of still fantastic journalists, people who I happen to know them and I know that they are giving it to me straight. But there's so many who don't. And we just have to ferret through it all to figure out what the truth is. But I don't, I had never found it difficult to parse out the truth because maybe it, maybe Miami is because I'm wishy-washy and I couldn't, you know, I'd rather not go there. It was very easy for me to get one side of the story, the other side of the story presented to the viewer and

let them decide who is telling the truth. I think television doesn't lie. It's a fascinating exercise in self-control. How did you not think, oh, wait a second, this feels more right? Were you never, did you never have a hunch and you were like, oh, wait a second, that actually isn't the case? It's such an exercise, it's almost an enlightened exercise not to have an opinion about something. I agree with you that it seems impossible to suppress your opinion. And what is true is that we are but human beings.

And we are products of our upbringing. And no matter how much we say to ourselves, we are being objective, we're human beings. So we probably do have an opinion. but I think the old-fashioned journalists would almost bend over backwards to try and be fair. So what happened when I was covering George McGovern, I would say that the majority of the reporters were part of the Eastern Liberals Establishment Press, which was alive and well then. But they gave him such a hard time. they really bent over backwards to pick him apart.

And because they felt perhaps guilt for being actually in favor of the guy and probably intending to vote for him, but they just had to do their job the way they were taught to do the job. And it was so, I think, admirable. But lots of times journalists will go too far. and pick on somebody who they really shouldn't be, you know, picking all the lint off this one person. It could easily have not been fair, but the government had his own issues. And, you know, during election years, every news organization tends to go overboard in one direction or another,

but nothing like it is today. This is insane. It's insane, Connie. Yeah. Let's talk about today because when I think about... Jonathan, I'm sorry, I don't know you. Are you from Canada? I am, yes.

Oh, how did I know? I don't know. How did you know? I'm undercover here. Because you sound Canadian. You sound Canadian. You do. You do it.

It's the about. About Aboot. Yeah. I love it. I think I'm much more undercover than I am, clearly. You should see how Canadian I sound when I go back to Toronto, though. It's much increased. That happens.

Yes. But what I was going to say is when I think about news organizations, when I think about news anchors in the 70s, in the 80s, even in the 90s, there's a level of professionalism that speaks to what you talked about. I'm going to present as much both sides of the story. Now, maybe I'm naive and that was never the case, but it seems like it was the case back then.

And at a certain point, especially, you know, to get us where we are now, profit motives, echo chambers. It seems like the only incentive an organization has right now is maintain their viewers at all costs, cut through an increasingly crowded landscape to get attention, and there are no morals or scruples. They'll perpetuate any narrative that will get them the viewer. And the result is that no one trusts anyone.

How did we get here? and are you sickened by what, you know, this institution of news has divulged into? Yeah. I, it depresses me terribly, and I, but I think it was encroaching on us as early as the 80s. And I kind of track that trend in my book. the evolution of or the devolution of the news media. Honestly, I think it might go back all the way to Vietnam when the general public wasn't trusting the government. And there was this creeping negativity spreading whereby people didn't trust the government

because the government wasn't telling them the truth. And then gradually, one of the biggest seminal moments in media history in television news was that corporations bought over ABC, NBC, and CBS. And right now you're seeing CBS in a terrible struggle being bought by a Hollywood mogul. and competition coming from the Seagram's heir, Edgar Bromfman. And it's just, it's the bottom line mentality. The, so what happened with the three networks is that once they got the bottom line mentality, the most important thing was to make money.

So in order to bring more people into the tent to get higher ratings, they actually got people like me to cover things that I didn't want to cover, like Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan and their battle or O.J. Simpson. And all of this would not have been covered had it occurred in the 70s. Because it wasn't news, right? That's right. That's exactly right. It was not news. It was frivolity. It was something that maybe it was on a feature page possibly or the sports page.

Maybe even the Olympics would be on the sports page. But it was not on the evening news. Walter Cronkite, I mean, all I could think of when I was covering Tanya Harding in Portland. And she was skating around, skating around at the Clackamas Mall skating rink. And I was dangling my microphone down as Tanya. Tanya, I was thinking, would Walter be standing here going, Tanya, Tanya, come talk to me? No. No.

No. So was it because you were a woman also that you were given what might be seen as not dignified pieces at that time? because that was not a... You're always dignified, but I'm saying that story was not... That was not a news story, and the question is exactly right. Would a man be asked to do this?

For me, it was more... The climate at CBS. CBS said... My co-anchor, Dan, rather, would never go. None of the 60 Minutes men want to touch this story. but CBS had bought the Olympics. And it was CBS prime time was in trouble. And they were using it the way NBC did every single Olympic year,

and that is to boost their ratings. And people would watch it night after night after night. And it did boost the ratings. So I had to do it for the team. No, you have to do this because no one else will touch it. You know, 60 Minutes, men won't touch it, they'll rather won't touch it.

You have to do it for us. And faced with that responsibility, even though I was carrying the CBS, even knowing I didn't want to do it and I didn't think it was dignified, I don't know. You know, I should have said, put my foot down and said,

not happening. I'm not doing it. I'm not going. Hell no, I won't go. But I couldn't. I whipped out. You talk about a perfect storm, really, Connie, and you connect it to Vietnam,

and then the corporatization of news where all the networks are being bought by conglomerates that have a responsibility to their shareholders to drive shareholder values. You said that so much better than I did. I practice. You really did. Go ahead. My question, I think, goes to the need to have impartial news as a core part of a healthy democracy.

In the absence of that, if the American public, as you said, starting in Vietnam, stopped believing what they were being told. And it's been a slow decline ever since. and the incentive structure of news organizations is literally to drive eyeballs at any cost. Is democracy at risk because of that recipe? I still believe that the Fourth Estate can live and thrive because it's a part of who we are. If you go back, way back.

There was a time when the news business was literally biased because the news was being disseminated by partisan I think you have to go back to when the printing press was invented and they were news was disseminated by partisan politicians

and partisan groups But I think I want to believe that we can harness it back to where it should be. And one of the things, my husband, Maury, is, you know, aside from naming babies or identifying babies, he has started a small newspaper in Montana. And he did that as an homage to that. his father, who is a newspaper man at the Washington Post. And it is so appreciated by the community. It's called the Flathead Beacon.

And other states judge it for awards. And it gets investigative awards. And it gets best online reporting and general coverage and all these wonderful awards. And the community really appreciates straight news. I believe that if we really can, that we can do it one city at a time, we can do it at one station at a time, one podcasts at a time, to make sure that whatever we are uttering is accurate and fair. Maybe we can bring swing that errant pendulum back.

I have to believe that because I was so lucky to be working at a time when news was honest and appreciated. Now we stand as low as Capitol Hill does and the Supreme Court and the media is in a toilet and we have not been able to climb out for some time. it's still really depressing.

It is depressing. I was, I mean, not to get super political, but I happened to be watching the Democratic National Convention last night. And, you know, I was really just kind of wanting to hear the speakers. I didn't really want to hear the commentary. And I was kind of like flipping around on the channels

and I'm watching, I have an 18-year-old who said to me last night, even though we live in California and it won't matter, I really want to say that I voted. this year in this election, you know? And so I wanted to watch to hear speakers. I wanted him to hear perspectives from the Democratic National Convention. And I'm hearing kind of all this commentary, and they keep cutting away from the speakers so that I can hear what they think about the speakers, and that was annoying. And it occurred to me that I kind of felt like I was watching, and I won't say which network, but it felt like I was watching kind of an extended social media Instagram feed,

where it was like rah, rah, rah. And even the convention itself, it kind of felt like everyone has been given signs so that they can all raise them in the air so that we can get that image and they're all doing the same chance. And, you know, my parents were anti-war activists and, you know, civil rights activists.

So, like, I know what happened in 1968 and I'm very interested in everything that's happening at this convention, but I actually want to just see what's happening and not the image of what they want me to see is happening. Does that feel like an accurate sort of assessment? You're spot on. I mean, completely spot on. The rah-rah on both sides is it actually makes me sick.

I can't, I so wanted to be, you know, I feel like I'm an old fart. And I want to say, that's not the way we. We did it. It's, and I would love to bring Uncle Walter back, and he would do it just plain straight. And also, I don't know, I find, I talk myself blue in the face. I throw shoes at the TV. I'm yelling when I hear, when I see an interview being done, I, and always say, ask this, ask that.

You didn't follow up. I'm going to ask you to go kind of one step, you know, deeper in that. You know, there are things that are happening in our culture, and there are things that are happening with the way we view the Supreme Court. There are things that are happening that people are kind of referencing as like, he's a threat to democracy, right? do I have the right, you know, to make decisions about my own body without caring what you think about it, right? These kind of issues of abortion, women's rights, you know, the rights of union workers to strike, you know, the notion that we cannot live in a, I do not want to live in a society where workers are threatened, you know, to be fired if they strike.

are there places where you as a human being can see that being a journalist is extra special hard right now when we're dealing with these kinds of broad brush paintings of the issues? And the fact is, like, I will lay my body down for women's right to an abortion. Like, this just feels like, like, at what point do you, as a journalist, get to say, I don't know how to be impartial, right? like, is there still a way to do that? Like, I used to talk to people on, quote, the other side. And then I realized, oh, they don't believe in my fundamental right, you know, as a liberal, as a Jewish woman.

You know, at what point do you kind of understand that framework? I feel for our journalists today, I mean, people have asked me, would you like to be back reporting? No, thank you. It's fraught with danger. It is very, very hard because if you're, if you as a journalist are aiming for the truth, it's very hard to ferret it out because there's so much vitriol and so much partisanship that I, I would find it very hard to navigate this, this journalistic. world today. I'm, I, I can't work in that kind of world and I, and I can barely watch it. I can

barely read it. It's, it's, it's truly fraught with danger. And if you were a journalist now, what, what would your tactic be? Would you say there are certain questions in areas I don't want to tackle? Would you believe that you could even be kind of, you know, respected in a space to even talk to quote the other side, whatever that looks like? I believe that, you know, because I believe in what I used to do, I think I could, I think I could navigate it. But that's just because I foolishly believe I knew what I was doing. But, you know, it's, I don't know, I think it's very hard because I have friends who are still in the news business and I don't envy them. They plow through it and they get through the garbage, but it's hard not to, you know, get some on your shoes.

It really is. almost everyone in today's news business is an opinion columnist as they present news. They present facts. They may acknowledge the other side and contrary facts, but primarily they are opinion people. If you had to do that, you know, if we're just imagining Connie reinvented in 2024, you know, she's out at one of the news stations, where would you, where would you, where would your home be? And could you imagine that? I know you talked about how hard it was just to even add your opinion in your memoir, but if we were just playing imagination, I'm not going to go there, Jonathan. That's fair. That's fair. Maybe Jonathan, if you sit down with me, I have a scotch

on the rocks. I might spill the beans. That's fair. What do you see as the challenges for women journalists now, no matter kind of what side of, you know, any aisle you're on. What are the challenges now and how are they different than they were, you know, when you started? Well, we still haven't reached the level of parity in all, not only the journalism, but in corporate America in sports, in all field of endeavor. We just aren't there yet. You know, I look at Caitlin Clark, who matched Pete Marevich's record for, I think, the most baskets in NCAA career. And then she banshe staff Curry for three-pointers. She surpassed that, I believe.

But then when she joined the WNBA, she makes a morsel amount of points. money compared to, and I can't pronounce this, and Wemba Yama, I think, who is the first draft. She was the first draft for women for the WNBA. He was the first draft for the men, for the NBA. It's just astounding. I mean, I look at that and say,

what, how could this be? So, I mean, at CBS News, So a woman just stepped down as the anchor, although the evening news is not what it used to be anyway. Nobody will be a Ruralt Ongat again. Anyway, she just stepped down and they replaced her with a black male and a white male. So what's wrong with this picture? It's not, we're taking a lot of steps backward. But at the same time, we cannot stop.

trying to make inroads, it would be foolish to. So I'm just hoping that today's women will fight the good fight, carry on, reach down and help another woman trying to step up the ladder. Along the lines of sort of women needing to continue to fight the good fight, one of our worst enemies as women is our own guilt and our own judgment. And you have a quote in your book, I believed earning a living was inexorably tied to my self-worth. I paid my own bills, supported my parents all their lives,

and then after marrying Mory, I always split the family finances with him 50-50. Without a salaried job, and this was after you left CBS, I believe. I felt as if I were not carrying my weight in my household. I deemed myself unproductive without a paycheck to show for my time. And you say that he never made you feel that way. it was I who took it upon myself to feel the guilt, guilt being my favorite emotion. And you had all, you know, you had all sort of ways that you made light of it. This is so relatable. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about, you know, was it that you came from such a strong work ethic and that you

started working so young and you had to sort of compete in the male world? What was it driving this notion that your worth, in particular as a woman, was tied to you working and earning and being quote, productive? It was probably being Chinese and being dutiful and these strong feelings of filial piety that I had to fulfill all of my parents' wishes. But add to that, when my father had a minor heart attack and retired, I became the breadwinner in my family. I was only 25, mid-20s,

and my sisters had all gone off and gotten married. And I was supporting my parents, basically the sole support. My sisters didn't have enough money to contribute. And then some of them didn't want to either. In other words, they were building their families and they didn't have the means. And they thought, well, Connie's got her career.

So as the breadwinner of the family, I understood that also brought together this necessity to be a man, a guy, because that's the traditional role of a man. So here, Jonathan, this weaves into your movie again. Barbara Walters was also, I related to her a lot because her father's nightclubs tanked. And she became the breadwinner of her family too. And so we both had to have our jobs because we needed the paycheck. And if we didn't have the money flowing in, we couldn't support our parents. She couldn't support her sister, and I couldn't support myself.

And so I took on this feeling of being the son that my parents never had. And this was a mission, actually, that my father had written to me in a letter. He said, maybe you can carry on the chung name and tell how this family came to the United States. and carry it forth the way Suns 2, basically. And I got that into my head. Then so here I was morphing into this guy, not only to earn my money, but that perpetuated even when I was married to Maury,

because I couldn't, I always, as you read, tied myself worth to a paycheck. Then, if I may, the final thing that comes around to give me a nice, wonderful de an ending to this book is the fact that a young Chinese woman, who is a journalist, her parents came from China. She was only three years old, and they said, we need to give you an American name. and she said, they said, who would you like to be? She's three years old.

She knows what she sees on television. She says, Connie or Elmo. So fortunately, her parents chose Elmo. Well, then this young woman who became a journalist for a Friday, read 29, her name is Connie Wong. She starts coming across more counties, and they're all Asian. And she says, this is weird. I think I've hit upon a phenomenon. And lo and behold, she found a lot of Connie's.

They were born in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when I was doing television news, and their names are Connie. So these parents decided that I had created this, well, then I broke the bamboo ceiling. And being guilt is my favorite emotion and humility is my favorite emotion. And I could never declare success if I didn't have a paycheck. And so when they did this, I thought, oh my gosh, maybe I did. Maybe I did what I can't say I did. Well, I will happily say it for you and embarrass you once again.

Yeah, I mean, the notion that, I mean, we had Jalen Rose on, a very famous basketball player, and a generation of boys were named, you know, Jalen for him. But a generation of women, you know, were impacted by you. And what I thought was so so especially powerful is, you know, you broke the bamboo ceiling, but it was not just for Asian women. You know, you represented an understanding of the seriousness of a woman and the fact that you had to do it as the son your parents never had, you know, the man who was a woman in the newsroom, right? That fact, I mean, we do. We stand on your shoulders.

And I think it's so important for women, you know, of my age and younger women to understand. You did all of this so that we can be outraged when men make a comment about our legs. and it's not appropriate. So we really do. Even those of us who are not named Connie, we stand on your shoulders. Thank you so much for writing this beautiful memoir. Thank you for being the mother to your children,

the wife to your husband, and really like a voice of reason and neutrality that we simply don't have anymore, especially from women. It's really so spectacular to get to talk to you. I am, I can't tell you. I'm calling you tomorrow. You know, just to get a little bit of,

boost. Well, I literally, you can tell your husband that I watched current affair. I was the only 11-year-old who watched current affair. I saw him as a very serious newsman before anyone started teasing him. So I'm really a fan of both of you. And when I found out that the current affair guy was married to Connie Chung, I lost my mind. So it's really such a pleasure to talk to you. The book is Connie, a memoir. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to know what it used to be. like and also what it's like now. So thank you so much. No, thank you, Ma'am. And Jonathan, I'm so happy you came along for the ride. And you put, you, you know, you, you summarized a lot of my thoughts. So maybe I ought to call you too. We're available for pep talks anytime you need.

Oh, good, good. This is good. This is very good for me. I appreciate it. We, we, we you only good things with the book and all things and really such an honor to talk to you. Thank you. Really a pleasure. Thank you. Nice to meet both of you. I mean, you know, I knew all about my, but I do nothing about you, Jonathan.

And frankly, I don't care. That's how I feel. The nicest thing anyone's ever said to. Jonathan, there was something I wanted to ask her about that I didn't get to. There were so many things I didn't get to get to. She and Moripovich dated for seven years without living together or being married. And then when they finally got married, they were living in two different cities when they moved in together. I mean,

like they were, it was a very unconventional thing and they've been together a million years. That could be the secret to a long-term relationship, just live in separate cities. They were also doing it at a time where there was like no FaceTime, no Zoom. You had to pay for a long-distance call. Like they were racking up long-distance charges. I mean, well, have to have her back for a whole episode on Connie Chung's guide to a successful relationship. When I choose my American name, when I fully acclimatize to this country, I might pick Connie. Connie Cohen. I'm sure there's a Connie Cohen somewhere. That's a really good, has a ring to it. I like alliteration. And her full name is Constance, but she said no one ever called her Constance.

She was always Connie. I think she was underplaying the risk to democracy. that the nature of our current news is currently having. Yeah, but she didn't want to go there with you. She's not on the Mori-Povit show. I need Maury to get on and say, is democracy going to end and is Maim the mother? No, I think that she, I mean, I think she was raised in a time when there literally was

a sense of reporting neutrality. And what I got was that, of course, she had opinions, of course she had feelings, but that's not what neutrality looks like. And in many ways, that was the challenge to being a female reporter. That's what they were afraid of, that you'd be too emotional, that you'd be too, you know, partisan, that you couldn't control your feelings. And she really mastered that art, for lack of a better word. I mean, it's almost laughable that that is something that people aspire to because of how foreign it is right now. Yeah. Like the notion

when what she was saying about McGovern and for those of you watching at home McGovern was a left-wing person right? So what she was saying was that a lot of the reporters who were technically quote on his side and for McGovern were actually going out of their way to be critical so that no one would think

that they were biased because they were liberal and he was liberal or they were Democrats and he was Democrats. That's how egregious it was for news. to be seen as in any way, you know, partisan. Can you imagine that right now where someone in the media would be like, I'm scared that someone's going to call me partisan? Like, that was the biggest fear that your reputation could be damaged by being considered partisan.

I know how every reporter feels based on the network that they're on pretty much. And, you know, there's some variability. Based on the first thing that comes out of their mouth. It's this party is horrible. That party is horrible. The tagline tells you everything. Here's what I was raised as a kid. Every politician's lying.

Every politician is lying. On both sides, in the middle, they're all lying because it is their job to convince you of something so that they can win the equivalent of ratings, which is your votes. So here's my thing. I know both sides are lying. I just do.

But what I know is that there's going to be things that I feel are consistent with my ethics. my, you know, my concept of how I want the country to be, that's what is going to drive me to a particular candidate, not necessarily a particular side, because there's more than two sides now, but the notion that when I watch the news, I often hear reporters telling the lies that the candidate is telling, even if it's the candidate I'm voting for and I like, like, I'm not three years old. It's not like you need to, you know, make it so simple for me. It's complicated and jobs are complicated and the economy is complicated, international policy.

It's all very complicated. I'm a big girl I can handle it. Do not feed me a lie that I know is a lie, even if it's the side that I agree with. It actually makes me not trust you. Yes, and most of the talking points are boiled down to taglines that they test. Does this test well? Are you going to get a bunch of people cheering for this tagline. Like, it's divulged into no one wants to actually talk about policy. It wasn't that long ago that people would get up

and a politician would be like, here are the five things that I'm going to make the cornerstone of the focus when I get into office. Now, either one side wants to make American great, the other side wants to bring back hope. What does that even mean?

Joy. They want to bring back joy. Your choices are, greatness or joy. But if you get to be great, then you will have joy. And if you have joy, then you can have greatness. So, like, there's no differentiation. There's also, you know, a level of kind of mud slinging that existed in a different way in Connie's time.

But, you know, when I even think about, you know, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, right? I think they were in the debate together. It was a level of decorum. Well, there was like, look, there were like shots below the belt, right? but the bar has been lowered so much. And it's like it is unrecognizable, even from 15 years ago. We literally had a vice president candidate

talking about how another vice president candidate had sex with a couch. Like, that's a running thing. And I'm not saying he did or didn't. I'm just talking about the level of discourse that we're currently. at. Like, could you imagine George Bush

having that conversation? When was that in the 2000s? You're like, I'm Canadian, I don't know. It just seems just utterly insane that that is how we communicate now. Well, Connie,

you know, lived through it all and also just from such an interesting perspective, you know, that she was so aware of what she sort of had to be. And also that she had to be that in her family. And I so many, you know, people and women in particular, I think, can relate to that. You know, when we get out into the work sector, we're in many ways repeating what we were raised in, right? Whatever role we had, whatever, you know, whatever duties we had in our family, we often take

those into the office space. And, you know, we've talked here before about sort of how then the politics of the office become the politics of parenting, right? Because, oh, this is how I had to work to get ahead. So then, of course, mothering becomes. a competition of whose kid will, say, the alphabet first, whose kid will walk first, who will eat solids first, who will wean first? Everything becomes this competition, so it's kind of like we're bouncing between my duties in the home,

my duties at work, bringing them back to the duties at home, and then you're raising a kid in this ultra-competitive atmosphere, and we wonder why everything is crazy. Anyway, that sort of sums up where we're at. Thank you, Connie Chung. From our breakdown to the one you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and biolics breakdown.

She's gonna break it down for you She's got a neuroscience PhD or two One fiction was and now she's gonna break down So break down She's gonna break it