In a frank and entertaining new memoir, the TV newscaster recounts how sexism, and Dan Rather, sidelined her groundbreaking career.
CONNIE: A Memoir, by Connie Chung
The day she was named co-anchor of the “ CBS Evening News” alongside Dan Rather, Connie Chung felt that she had reached the pinnacle of broadcast journalism.
“Thursday, May 14, 1993, was the best day of my professional life. … I had my dream job,” she writes in an entertaining and revealing memoir that traces the triumphs and disappointments of her prominent career.
The anchor appointment meant even more because she was a Chinese American woman, brought up by strict parents; in accordance with tradition, she lived with them until she was nearly 30, even as she was climbing the ladder — often wearing stiletto heels.
In “Connie,” Chung writes breezily and with irreverent humor about the scoops, the internal politics and the pure hustle that eventually got her to the top. She worked the Watergate beat for CBS in Washington in the 1970s and moved to Los Angeles to anchor the CBS-owned local station before her big break came — and big, it certainly was.
In her era, network newscasts ruled the airwaves, cable news was just beginning its rise and news flooding in via smartphone was more than a decade away. The evening anchors were household names.
Rather had been named the immediate successor to the revered Walter Cronkite at what was nicknamed the Tiffany Network, so the promotion of an Asian American woman to work alongside him was quite a breakthrough.
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Source: Television - nytimes.com
