EOTO 4: Connie Chung

 

    Connie Chung is an American broadcast journalist . She was born on August 20th, 1946 as Constance Yu-Hwa Chung in Washington D.C. and had changed her name to Connie. She was born into a family of 10 siblings by her parents William Ling Chung and Margaret Ma. Her father, William Ling Chung, was an Intelligence officer in the Chinese Nationalist Government. Unfortunately, during wartime 5 of her siblings had tragically passed away. After graduating high school she went on to study journalism and received her Bachelor's Degree at the University of Maryland in 1969. While studying journalism she interned with a congressman who was a retired journalists. He inspired Chung to get into broadcast.

Journalism Career

  Her career in journalism began at Washington's WTTG-TV not long after graduating from school. She worked there until 1972 and worked her way up to being a reporter. She was hired by CBS News to work as a Washington-based correspondent in 1972. It was during her time at CBS that she scored her first large scale interview and her career really took off. She interviewed President Nixon

 during the Watergate scandal and became a force to be recon with. Soon after, she moved to L.A. and worked for KCBS as a the lead news anchor. Seven years later Chung became one of the most popular journalists in TV news with her work at NBC. Her time in the news world seemed to come to a halt as she moved on to produce different television programs. She first launched a program titled Face to Face with Connie Chung. This was a popular program however, it was criticized for being more
entertaining than informative.Then in June of 1993, CBS announced she would be the co-anchor of their nightly news broadcast. This only lasted two years before Chung asked to be let out of her contract. At the same time, she was working on a magazine titled, Eye to Eye with Connie Chung and even attempted to launch her one news program. These project did end up being a flop and so in 1997 she anchored the Friday night newsmagazine 20/20 for ABC. In 2002 Chung took a job with CNN. This only lasted a year before they dropped her, prompting her to take a break from Television. By 2006 she was ready to get back in the game and with her husband, Maury Povich, a popular television host, they started a show titled, Weekends with Maury & Connie. This show was canceled after six months due to low ratings. From there, Chung took a break all together from television.

Accomplishments

Although Chung took on many different projects ending in success and failure, she accomplished a lot during her career. She made her mark for woman in broadcast in America. She was one of the first female reporters on national television in the United States and broke down the gender barriers of the late 20th century. She was also the first Asian American anchor of a major network newscast. She has also gone on to receive multiple different awards. These include the George Foster Peabody Award,
The Amnesty International Human Rights Award, and has been awarded three Emmy Awards. Two of her Emmy's being, Best Interview/ Interviewer. Although her tv career ended in 2006 she is a huge icon in American Broadcast. She has paved the way for many female broadcasters and has made her mark on the world.