- Hi, I'm Rick Breitenfeld.

I guess daydreams have been around as long as well, people have.

Over the centuries they've probably had to do mostly with fame and wealth since the emergence of radio and television and maybe since the recent Watergate scandals.

Some dreams of glory have come to include stardom in the field of news.

I'm about to talk with someone who grew up in Silver Spring and took her first job as a college graduate at a local Washington television station, and only a year or so later was hired by CBS as a reporter.

Very quickly, she became familiar to us all as a glamorous CBS correspondent in person Connie Chung.

(lively music) Connie Chung was born in Washington but her four sisters were born on the mainland of China.

Her father was a diplomat for Chiang Kai Shek.

She was graduated from Montgomery Blair High School and went on to earn a journalism degree at the University of Maryland.

She's now co-anchor of the KNXT Channel 2 News in Los Angeles.

She was declared the outstanding young woman in America in 1975 and was granted an honorary degree in journalism from Norwich University.

Her other awards are from the National Association of Media Women, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the American Association of University Women, the Greater Los Angeles Press Club and the Valley Press Club also in California.

In 1978 she won a Los Angeles Emmy Award.

Connie, that's an awful lot.

(chuckling) Were you always aiming at going into news, that little nine year old Connie Chung, what did she want?

- [Connie] No, no.

I wanted to be a ballet dancer.

I really wanted my parents to send me to this ballet school, but they didn't.

There wasn't enough money to go around for those other four sisters too.

- [Rick] So they sent you to Montgomery Blair?

- [Connie] That's right.

But you know what?

They did tell me that when I was really little about five that I used to take the hose of a vacuum cleaner and interview people with it, you know, what's your name?

What do you do, and things like that.

And they said that that's where it all started - [Rick] Yes, that's hardly ballet.

(Connie laughs) - [Connie] But in college I majored in biology for about three years and it wasn't until I worked for a Congressman as a summer intern on Capitol Hill who was a former newspaper man.

And he got me interested in writing, speeches, and press releases, and things like that.

And so when I went back in the fall I switched to journalism and that's how I ended up with a journalism degree.

- [Rick] Started in your junior year then?

- [Connie] Mm-hmm, actually, right about my junior year, that's when I switched.

And I took some radio, TV courses on the side.

- [Rick] You had a job when you left the University of Maryland at Channel 5 in Washington, an independent station.

- [Connie] Mm-hmm.

- [Rick] Upon graduation most young people looking for work in broadcasting do a lot of pavement pounding.

How did you do it?

- [Connie] Well, I took some good advice from a professor at Maryland.

He suggested that I get a part-time job the semester before I graduate.

So what I did was I went around to all the local stations in Washington and I tried to get a job as a copy person, just a messenger, go for coffee and all that stuff.

And I got a two night a week job at Channel 5 and then it turned into a part-time job in June.

And the professor told me, "Just get your foot in the door, and then in June when everyone else is flooding the market you know, you'll have your little foot in the door."

[Rick] When you were two nights a week at the WTTG as a gopher, were you a volunteer or a worker?

- [Connie] You know, somebody asked me that recently and I can't remember.

I can't remember if I was paid.

- [Rick] Money always been so unimportant?

- [Connie] No, no, no, no, that's not.

It's just that I really wanted to get into the work, you know.

So it wasn't...

I think I was paid like a really minimum wage, but I mean it was so minuscule that I can't remember.

I felt more like a volunteer 'cause I was getting that much.

- [Rick] Why do young people come in and are willing to volunteer or be an intern something?

- [Connie] No, I think, I was paid.

I just can't remember.

I think it was like just a minimum wage and two nights a week for a few hours.

And ah- You know, when you're a senior you have enough time and you can.

- [Rick] So you graduated and then what?

- [Connie] And then they took me on as a full-time employee and- - [Rick] There just happened to be an opening when you graduated?

- [Connie] Well, I tell ya', it was very typical.

It's typical for so many women who enter the business.

I had to do some secretarial work in the newsroom.

As much as I hated to do it, it was the only job that they really had open.

So they promised that they would move me along.

So I did some secretarial work and then- - [Rick] Had your skills?

- [Connie] Oh yeah, I knew how to type.

All reporters have to know how to type anyway.

- [Rick] Steno, no steno?

- [Connie] No, mm-mmh.

I regret that, I wish, I had taken some shorthand.

- [Rick] It's good for a reporter to have (indistinct).

- [Connie] Absolutely, absolutely, I really wish I had.

So I was doing secretarial work for a while but it was such a small newsroom that I could do all sorts of other things too helping (indistinct).

And then they wanted to hire another writer.

And so I applied for that job, I said, "Can I have it?"

And they said, "Well, you know, yes but we really need a secretary."

And right at that time of course there was a heavy push to hire minorities.

And they very openly said, "We need a black person or some minority."

So I said, "Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it."

I went across the street to this bank and there was this really cute black teller.

And I said, "Can you type?

And she said yes.

And I said, "Do you wanna become a big star at that TV station across the street?"

And she said, "Sure."

So I dragged her across the street and she took a little test and she got the job.

So there, she became the secretary and I became a writer.

- [Rick] You kick yourself upstairs.

- [Connie] You got it.

(chuckles) But it worked and it was great.

So I became a writer and then they'd send me out on stories occasionally.

It was such a small operation and I'd volunteer all the time to go out and stories.

And so I went out once in a while and finally they made me a reporter.

So I was on the air about a year.

- [Rick] They are independent, that is to say they're not affiliated with any network.

So there would not be the obvious way for CBS to realize that you existed.

How did CBS discover you?

And with one year experience behind you in all candor?

- [Connie] Exactly, well, there was a great push as we had been talking about earlier to hire minorities and women.

And I think that CBS had only had one woman at the time Marya McLaughlin.

And they were getting a lot of pressure from women's groups to hire women.

And finally they decided to make up for all the years of discrimination and hire some women.

And they really did, they made a big effort and they hired four women and I was one of them.

So the timing was perfect.

I mean, I think I owe a great deal to the women's movement for helping push certain women in.

But it became more difficult I think, it becomes more difficult for women who make it that way because they come in and they are less experienced, and I think there's a harder time for them.

- [Rick] And you're one of them?

- [Connie] Yes, I think there's a harder time ahead.

In other words, because they have to go through a little bit more difficult hazing period.

They aren't accepted immediately.

I was young, a Chinese and a woman.

And I think that all those things though they helped me get the job worked against me.

It was a little harder proving myself.

- [Rick] What was the toughest thing to learn?

- [Connie] Well, just becoming more experienced.

You know, I was just a cub reporter.

I didn't really didn't know what I was doing but they were very kind to me and they really helped me a lot.

Um...also you know, being in Washington I met a lot of the people who were correspondents at CBS.

And I think, Bob Schieffer who is anchoring the Morning News now.

He used to work at Channel 5 at WTTG and he had remembered me and he had recommended me.

Also George Herman, who's correspondent Washington now.

Both George and Bob suggested that CBS take a look at me and that's how I was hired.

- [Rick] And shortly thereafter, you went from being a CBS reporter to being a CBS correspondent.

Now what is the difference between the two?

- [Connie] Well, there's very little difference.

It's a- When one is hired in the beginning one's hired as a reporter, the title of reporter.

And at some point you're given the title of correspondent when you sort of made it.

When the boss thinks that you have proved yourself enough, that you've- - [Rick] Oh, it's just a name then?

- [Connie] Yes, yes it's a title.

Essentially, the work, you know the work is the same.

We all go out and cover stories and we do radio and television for Cronkite News or CBS News.

- [Rick] When you hadn't been working for CBS for too long, I read that the Appalachian dragon lady was applied to you.

Now, was that a deserved title?

- [Connie] Well, I don't know.

I guess I suppose that all of us who become reporters become tougher as we stay in the business.

- [Rick] In what way?

- [Connie] Well, I think, I grew up in rather sheltered home, a nice little Chinese home.

And I think that- - [Rick] With third girls it wasn't so little.

- [Connie] No that's right, that's right.

My father could never get into the bathroom, but we...I don't know, it was sheltered in the sense that I don't think, I was exposed to all sorts of things that happen.

But in covering local news, you cover crime, you see miserable fires, you see dead bodies, plane crashes are one of the worst things to cover.

You suddenly become hardened and you see things very realistically.

If there was a lot of softness and a weakness in here, you would take it home and you would cry about it and you would worry about it and you'd live with it all the time.

You understand what I'm saying?

- [Rick] Well, that's the hardness.

What about the aggressiveness required?

- [Connie] Well, I find it to be an extremely competitive business no matter what station you're working for and in order for you to get the story, and the best story, and the scoop, and the first on the scene, and all of that business.

- [Rick] You gotta push.

- [Connie] You gotta push.

And that means this kind of push, you know, shove a little to get through a crowd.

- [Rick] Is that strange for you, was it out of character?

- [Connie] Yes, I think so.

I mean, I was at home, my sisters didn't even know that I could speak 'cause I could never get a word in edgewise.

They were always talking.

So, I mean, they didn't even know that I could speak and I was really kind of quiet at home.

So when I went into this business I think they thought it was pretty strange.

And I think, I had to just acquire more of an aggressiveness.

- [Rick] Did any of your relatives born on the mainland of China recognize in you what might've been called an Americanization with this hardness and this aggressiveness and competitive spirit?

- [Connie] Probably, but I don't know.

I think that my parents sort of brought all of us, all the girls, all of the women in the family, the five girls up to be rather strong women.

And I don't think it was terribly out of character.

I don't think my parents found it to be terribly strange that we eventually all of us made little ways for ourselves.

Um, maybe they didn't expect such aggressiveness from time to time from me.

In other words, during Watergate, you know, so many of those Watergate characters slammed doors in our faces, all the reporters faces, car doors, house doors.

What I have you.

You know, we'd be standing there- - [Rick] The news door.

(Connie laughing) - [Connie] Yeah, standing there, right.

It saying, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you?

And it was always no comments, slam.

I remember standing outside Haldeman's house almost every morning.

It was a ridiculous sort of thing but it's called a stakeout and you just sort of stand there every morning, six o'clock in the morning.

We wait for him to come out.

- [Rick] And say no comment.

- [Connie] Mm-hmm, and he was so funny though, because he'd have to read his Washington Post to find out what the story of the day was.

So he'd opened the door and he'd pick up his Washington Post, "Good morning."

We all say "Good morning."

And he closed the door and he read his Washington Posts and then he'd come out.

Okay, did you, did you, did you, did you, did you and he walked through his car slam, goodbye.

that was it, every morning.

- [Rick] Just in case he might have something to say one morning?

- [Connie] You got it, just in case.

One time he did.

I think one time I was with him and he said, he made a comment for the first time.

I think he denied something mean, he said something other than no comment.

It was quite a surprise.

- [Rick] What about Mr. Mitchell?

He said, "Well, let's wait and see," which is hardly an answer.

- [Connie] Oh yes, he was rather impossible.

I mean, when we were trying to question him.

I don't know, Ehrlichman was kind of fun I thought, because he used to joke with us a lot.

Oh, one other thing about Haldeman though, he loved cameras.

Remember how you used to take home movies of Nixon?

Well, he was really fascinated with our cameras.

And so one time, I think it was just one time we had followed him home.

And he had gone into his house and then he came out a little later and he said "Can I just come out and look at your camera?"

I said sure.

(laughing) - [Rick] Did the cavorting with all these powerful figures have any effect on you?

Were you scared or you to get over that (indistinct)?

- [Connie] Oh, sure, I think a little scared in the beginning.

Um, you know, particularly covering Capitol Hill.

It's very male dominated society there.

And I think that being a young woman.

- [Rick] Like how you were and are?

- [Connie] Yeah, exactly.

You always have this old certain saying, "Well, hi, little lady.

You got a little question for me?"

(laughing) "Well, no I don't think so.

I'm not gonna put you on national television after all" you know.

(Rick laughs) - [Rick] What does it do to you as a young lady or a young person when fame, maybe that's the wrong word, when prominence, when national exposure on television comes so quickly and your name becomes recognizable without really paying the years of dues that an athlete, a musician, an actor, a politician or most recognizable people pay, do you turn your head?

- [Connie] Au, contraire.

I don't think so, though I mean, I don't think that I reached some kind of fame and fortune without paying dues.

As a reporter in Washington for WTTG, and then those five years at CBS I don't think I was really very well known or what you would call famous or anything or even now.

Um, I remember those five years at CBS as being rather anonymous and just paying my dues and being a reporter.

I don't remember being stopped on the street.

I was just another reporter.

- [Rick] So you were learning the trade?

- [Connie] Yes, absolutely.

Um, the recognition was with Walter Cronkite, really.

It was Walter's show and it's always been Walter's show and he is it.

He's the 800 pound gorilla.

We were just the little people who would put together one minute pieces, you know, or two minute pieces.

- [Rick] Speaking of that, let me ask you something that I understand about the way correspondents are paid.

I understand there's a base salary and then you are paid in accordance with what or how much of your stories are used on the air.

And whether it's on the air is a decision made I presume in New York.

So there must be some competition between you and another correspondent or among a whole series of corresponds to get their stuff on.

How does that work?

[Connie] I think, the incentive for getting the story on was more of an incentive to get your story on more so than the pay.

There were at the CBS Bureau in Washington, there are correspondence that are on that level which is paid by story.

And there are others who are on straight contract which is straight salary.

And I don't think that for any of us there was ever truly any incentive for just story...you know, money per story.

I think it was more, I wanna get my story on the air.

It just the way a newspaper reporter wants to have his or her story printed.

You know, doesn't want it to end up in the trash can or in the cutting room floor.

- [Rick] In a sense, every story is on spec.

It's like sending articles to a magazine.

- [Connie] Oh yes, that's right.

Because you cover so many stories locally.

In other words, locally, Washington, and nationally and internationally, it depends on which stories get on the air and that's what it is.

I mean, certainly it's a peculiar way of handling it to have, have you paid by story.

But then some of the reporters let's see, after they became correspondents many of the correspondence reached different levels and were no longer paid in that fashion.

And now it's different.

You know, I'm anchoring the news at KNXT in Los Angeles at the CBS station there and it's straight salary.

So it's no longer.

- [Rick] But do they still have that tradition where somebody- - [Connie] At CBS?

- [Rick] Yeah.

- [Connie] I think so.

I haven't been in touch lately.

(chuckling) - [Rick] What made you go to California?

- [Connie] Well, I had been in Washington almost all my life.

Um, after Watergate, all the reporters went through severe withdrawal symptoms.

I mean, there was no story.

(mumbling) Yes, that's right.

There was no more news that was interesting, there was nothing that was worth doing, you know, "Hmm, that's boring, it is that."

- [Rick] Not as exciting as impeaching a president.

- [Connie] Oh, I mean, it was the story of the century.

It was just an incredible story to cover.

And it was much more than just standing out and waiting for people to come out of doors.

There were so many times during the House Judiciary Committee hearings when I was covering that.

Then there was this investigative reporting.

of course we never did is what Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward did.

None of us did.

We couldn't come close to it, but some of us were able to get little scoops here and there, nothing of what they did.

But there was that, also I had covered Nelson Rockefeller, who he was my beat.

And I really enjoyed doing that.

And it was something I had wanted to do.

I wanted to have a beat and I had that beat.

I had covered a presidential campaign.

In '72, I covered McGovern.

So, I decided well, I've done a nice little chunk of work in Washington and it's my hometown.

Now I've had an opportunity to go West, you know, go out there, go ahead, do it.

So I thought, yeah, I'll do it.

I'll try it out and see how it is.

I think that reporters should live and work in other cities.

And so I think I needed that kind of experience.

- [Rick] Before I continue with California, you mentioned Rocky.

He became a friend as well as a beat, didn't he?

Because you were around him so much.

What kind of a guy was he?

- [Connie] Um, he was so wealthy that I think that his ability to truly understand everyone was hampered to some extent.

He lived in a completely different world but he tried so hard.

He was so humble, really.

He tried so hard to be humble and friendly, and wonderful with everyone that I really had to respect him for that.

And I had to respect him because he was a very good politician in the sense that he had a good relationship with reporters, no matter how difficult the questions we asked were, no matter what a tough time we'd give him in asking questions, he always understood that was our job and that he would look better if we asked tough questions because he would come back with tough answers.

Richard Nixon never understood the relationship between the press and a politician.

He always resented any kinds of questions and was never able to have a relationship with the press.

But Rockefeller understood it and I always appreciated that.

Um, he was a funny guy.

I mean, he was a very, very funny man in his delightful personality, um...but you know, the wealth was so enormous.

And we one time we went up to his house in Maine to cover some fundraiser that he had up there.

And he had cordoned off part of the ocean and heated it so that they could swim in it, now can you imagine?

Yeah, now that's wealth.

(laughing) That was fascinating.

- [Rick] If you begin to respect and admire and like somebody whom you're covering, do you lose that detachment and coolness that you should have?

- [Connie] Well, I didn't like him that much.

(laughing) No, I don't think so.

- [Rick] Is objectivity really possible?

- [Connie] No, I don't think so.

I mean, all reporters are human beings.

We're telling people what we see through our eyes and we try very hard to be objective and I think all reporters are trying all the time to be very objective, but there has to be a little bit of subjectivity there.

And actually what happens when you cover someone regularly you almost see too many pimples and too many blemishes and too many problems with them.

So you actually begin to be probably more critical than you should be.

I found that was probably true when all the reporters were covering McGovern in '72, because he was so accessible whereas Richard Nixon was in the White House and was not coming out and talking to reporters.

And so I think all the reporters sort of jumped on McGovern and really almost picked on him and saw the blemishes and the pimples and every little thing that he said was picked on.

And yet I would guess that the Eastern Liberal Establishment Press was alive and well and probably 95% of them really voted for him.

- [Rick] Is the Western Press so different from the Eastern Press or the Western outlook mindset or whatever?

- [Connie] Sure, I think so.

- [Rick] What do find out there?

- Well, I think that I try not to compare the coasts anymore.

I was gonna say to myself, I'm gonna hold a news conference and declare a moratorium on comparing the East and the West coast.

But West coast people really are a little more relaxed.

I mean, if you go to New York City or even Washington there's a sense of hustle and bustle, and combat on the streets.

You just have to make your own little space, and you're gonna keep that space, and you're gonna walk down the street, and you're not gonna let anybody.

Well California, you know, hey, the space is all over, and everyone's kind of cool.

And the sun is always shining.

Everything's always pleasant.

I think things move a little more slowly.

- [Rick] In the way that things move more slowly in the old South or in a different kind of way?

- [Connie] Well, it's kind of, maybe not that slow.

(laughing) In the sense that people don't speak slowly certainly.

- [Rick] What are on people's minds out there?

I mean, what makes up the local news?

- [Connie] You know what, okay, there isn't as much a sense for news.

I don't think people care as much about news as they do on the East coast.

They listen to the news, they watch the news.

It's a very physical society in a sense that you know, almost all year around, you can go out and play tennis and swim, and play golf, and ski.

Cold weather and warm weather, water ski.

So while it's still warm in the daytime, I mean, before the sun goes down people are out doing things that are physical rather than necessarily being glued to the New York Times or the Washington Post.

In Los Angeles there's one dominant paper, the Los Angeles Times, and then there's the Herald Examiner which is struggling the way the Washington Star was struggling against the Washington Post.

And I just don't think that people don't have that intense desire for news as perhaps Washington does.

You know, Washington is surrounded with news, right?

The whole town ticks with news and Capitol Hill.

Whereas Los Angeles doesn't run by the beat of news.

- [Rick] Where does the real Connie Chung live?

Are you becoming attracted to that California style or are you an Easterner, are you a mid Atlantic?

But where do you really live geographically?

- [Connie] Okay, I think it would be ideal to be bi-coastal.

(laughing) - [Rick] That's a new one, that's a new one.

- [Connie] How's that?

- [Rick] Can't get arrested for that (mumbles).

- [Connie] Nah, it's so nice on the West coast.

I mean, there's just marvelous things about it now.

I love it there, but I also love the East coast.

Every time I come back, I say to myself, this great place.

I love the excitement and the intellectual stimulation here on the East coast.

- [Rick] Has your image of Maryland changed from when you were at Montgomery Blair?

- [Connie] Well, not really.

I met with some old high school friends the last time I was here just a few months ago.

And we were all the same, it was great.

We were doing different things.

- [Rick] You went to high school with Goldie Hawn, didn't you?

- [Connie] Yes, I think she was about a year ahead of me.

And- - [Rick] Was she nuts?

- [Connie] She was wonderful.

She was a brilliant actress then.

And she always participated in all the plays.

And I remember who is it?

I also went to the same junior high school that she did, Takoma Park Junior High.

I remember she was in the 10th grade, I think at Blair and I was in the ninth grade and she came back to to advise some of the theatrical productions.

And I was doing Honey Bun in South Pacific.

Remember that?

And she was talking to me about it.

Oh, I know what it was, I was gonna do one of two songs from South Pacific or something.

And that was my only dabbling in theater.

And she suggested not doing Honey Bun but instead doing that little happy talk song which was much more appropriate for me.

(laughing) - [Rick] Except you hardly looked apart.

- [Connie] Hardly.

- [Rick] Think of young people, these days, news and media are very popular as young people think of careers.

And so let me ask the question that I hope a lot of them might have, Miss Chung, what should I do?

What's the best way for me to get into news or into television?

What should I study and what should I do and where should I be?

- [Connie] Okay, I strongly believe that students in college shouldn't major in journalism.

I did and I don't really think that, that was the way to go.

If I had to do it over again, I would've majored in history because news becomes history the next day.

And I think that you get a much better background on what is occurred in the world.

You got geography, writing, all of that or second choice or an alternative choice would be to major in English.

And thirdly, perhaps a major in political science if you wanna cover politics.

However, I would strongly also recommend taking many courses like minoring in journalism.

Taking many courses in journalism and taking many courses in radio and television if radio and television is the side that you wanna go into rather than newspapers or magazines.

Also I'd recommend getting a part-time job, the way I did before you graduate, then you can get your foot in the door.

And also reading the paper every day, reading all the papers that you can get your hands on from if in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun and the News American, and the Washington Post, and the Evening Star in the New York Times and all of them.

- [Rick] This is Connie Chung.

Local girl made good, I guess from Silver Spring, CBS correspondent, and now anchor person at KNXT in Los Angeles, visiting Maryland to do a series for the instructional television division of the Maryland State, Department of Ed.

Be with us next week in person.

(lively music) - [Advertiser] In Person is brought through Marylanders through grants by Waverley Press INC, The Williams and Wilkins Company, and the members of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting.