Connie Chung

Constance Yu-Hwa Chung (Chinese: 宗毓華; pinyin: Zōng Yùhuá; born on August 20, 1946) is a television newswoman. She was born and grew up in Washington D.C. as one of several daughters of a high ranking Kuomintang diplomat from Taiwan. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 1969 with a degree in journalism.

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Connie Chung at the announcement of the start of her CNN show, Connie Chung Tonight.

Her real breakthrough in television news came when she anchored the evening news program at the Los Angeles owned and operated station of CBS, KNXT (now KCBS). Chung's network television career has been with ABC, 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. Despite this, her interviews were still widely recognized as being 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 interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and Gary Condit. In an interview with Kathleen 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. Though her arrival at CNN was heavily hyped by the network, her show was not popular with critics and Chung was criticized for awkward interviews and somewhat superficial news coverage. CNN changed her show from live to pre-taped to make it flow better. Although it did moderately well in the ratings, her show was suspended once the 2003 Iraq War began. During the war, her only role was to read some headlines. Once CNN resumed regular programming, Chung requested CNN to put her show back on as soon as possible. The network responded by cancelling it, even though her contract had not yet expired. In an interview, CNN founder Ted Turner called the show "just awful."

Her last public appearance was as a guest on The View in 2005.

Although no longer in the public eye, Chung is still lampooned regularly (especially for her current lack of a journalistic career) on the FOX television series MADtv, with Korean-American comedian Bobby Lee playing Chung in drag.

MSNBC announced in November, 2005, that Chung will host a currently untitled weekend news show on the network with Povich. The show will premiere January 7, 2006, with replays of each show airing throughout the weekend, and will feature a variety of topics and guests.

She is a convert to Judaism.