Journalist Connie Chung wanted to 'gang up on' male anchors with Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer

The Sunday Magazine24:40Connie Chung is tackling her biggest story yet: Her own

When legendary journalist Connie Chung began her career in the news industry, she remembers being in what she calls a "sea of men."

"Everybody in the newsroom was a white male and all of my competitors at other television networks were white males, and the people I covered were white males," she said.

So she decided that as an Asian American woman, in order to hold her own, she would try to act just like them. 

"I had bravado, I had moxie, I had chutzpah. I decided I would be terribly aggressive and [enter] a room and own it as if I had respect just by virtue of the fact that I knew I was a man," Chung told The Sunday Magazine's Piya Chattopadhyay.

In 1993, she became the first Asian American and the second woman to co-anchor a nightly network newscast, when she took the helm of CBS Evening News alongside Dan Rather. 

In her new book, Connie: A Memoir, she looks back on her storied career, from her beginnings as a Washington correspondent in the early 1970s to breaking barriers as an Asian American woman in television news. 

But Chung's reflections also reveal the sexism that she and other female colleagues faced as they blazed a trail in television journalism. 

Connie, you [became] the first Asian-American and just the second woman ever after Barbara Walters to co-anchor a major network's national newscast.… What did that moment feel like for you? 

I was so incredibly shocked and thrilled because I didn't think I'd ever see another woman come along and co-anchor the CBS Evening News. I didn't ever think that I would sit in Walter Cronkite's chair, let alone sit in half of it. He was my mentor ... there were no women.

And there I was, sitting in half of his chair, next to someone who didn't want me there, frankly. He had been there all by himself for many years, but I was plopped right next to him. I don't think that even if I were a man or an animal or a plant, that I would have been acceptable to him. 

Nonetheless, there I was and I was just over the moon … I was happy as a clam, just really thrilled that I had gotten there to a position that I never thought I would really get to. 

Barbara Walters was the first [woman] in the United States to co-anchor the news with [Harry Reasoner].

And for both of us, it was over after two years.

So when you look back on it now, how do you think about those years? 

It was a systemic problem that existed, that men just dominated the television news business.

America was accustomed to having white males deliver them the news. I know that there were many people who believed that I had the credibility, the honesty and the fairness to deliver them the news. But it just wasn't working. 

Co-anchoring a small, half-hour newscast is pretty tough in the sense that it's hard to share a small amount of news. 

I think all across Canada and probably all across the United States, there are hour-long programs that have co-anchors. But a half-hour program to share is difficult. And I think he — my co-anchor, Dan Rather — didn't want to share any part of it. 

So it made it very contentious, frankly, because I wanted to cover big stories. He wanted to cover big stories. And whenever I was out covering one, he wanted to be there instead of me. And it made our relationship very dicey.  

Things have gotten better, but those issues still exist in many newsrooms across your country and mine.

Yes. And Piya, I wanted to say that there's a disease that the anchormen contract. It's called big-shot-itis. They think that they are masters of the universe and that everybody knows their name, but they don't. And they are engaged in self-aggrandizing behaviour, and they can't stop talking. When we're on the air, they hog.  

And I found that they're insufferable and … they have delusions of sexual prowess, which I think is just comical. I mean, are you kidding me? Dude, no. You're not appealing to millions of women.

You mentioned Barbara Walters, and she was having her own challenges over at ABC. And you mentioned Diane Sawyer … why wasn't there that kind of camaraderie between the three of you? What was the sort of bigger forces at play as you have come to understand them?

When I joined [ABC News], Barbara Walters was already the queen, and Diane Sawyer was a pretty big star. And what I didn't realize was that they were battling each other for top dog position. I was really pretty foolish in believing that they would welcome me with open arms. 

But what turned out to be a battle royale between the two of them, that really surprised me. But … I think in looking back at it, I understand why. 

And I think it's because women in general in any field — in a law firm, in hospital administration, in any corporation — are given such a small sliver of the pie, and men own the rest of that pie. They can share a huge chunk of that pie, whereas the women have to share a tiny piece of the pie. 

And that causes women to compete with each other, which is basically not fair because if you're going to have to share a tiny little amount of lemon meringue pie, you're not going to get anywhere. You get a little bit of the crust, and that's all.

It was shocking, actually, to me. I thought that we could gang up on the men. I wanted to gang up on Peter Jennings. I wanted to gang up on Ted Koppel.

But they didn't want to do that — Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer did not want to do that. And I thought, "I don't get it." So I went off on my own and just did stories that I didn't think anybody would do or would want to do.

And you know what? It was an extremely gratifying experience.