Connie Chung Disappeared From TV. It's Now Pretty Clear Why

April 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Connie Chung was born in Maryland to recent-immigrant parents from China. As the youngest of ten children, Chung said her family found her decision to study the then-budding field of television journalism surprising. "For a small, diminutive-sized Chinese person who grew up in a very loud family and never spoke up in her life, it was dramatic," Chung told NPR in 2011.

After graduating from the University of Maryland, Chung got a job as a correspondent in Washington, D.C. for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. It was at this job that she proved her knack for chasing the story. She shared an anecdote on Watch What Happens Live in 2018 about an impromptu interview with President Richard Nixon during the height of the Watergate scandal. "I happened to be walking into the White House, and he's just standing there," she told Andy Cohen. She recalls not taking out her pen and notepad, hoping to encourage him to keep talking without getting scared. The result: She went on the air later that evening with an exclusive scoop.

After bouncing around a bit in the 1970s, Chung eventually found a home at NBC in 1983, anchoring the morning show NBC News at Sunrise. She also anchored the NBC Nightly News on Saturdays, and served as Tom Brokaw's substitute when he could not make weeknight appearances.

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