Connie
A Memoir
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S PICK •
A LA TIMES AND PEOPLE BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH
"This delightful memoir is filled with Connie Chung’s trademark wit, sharp insights, and deep understanding of people. It’s a revealing account of what it’s like to be a woman breaking barriers in the world of TV news, filled with colorful tales of rivalry and triumph. But it also has a larger theme: how the line between serious reporting and tabloid journalism became blurred." - Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author
In a sharp, witty, and frank memoir, iconic trailblazer and legendary journalist Connie Chung pulls no punches in detailing her storied career as the first Asian woman to break into an overwhelmingly white, male-dominated television news industry.
Connie Chung is a pioneer. The youngest of ten children, she was the only one born in the U.S., after her parents escaped war-torn China in a harrowing journey to America, where Connie would one day make history as the first woman (and Asian) to co-anchor the CBS Evening News. Profoundly influenced by her family’s cultural traditions, yet growing up completely Americanized, she dealt with overt sexism and racism. Despite this, her tenacity led her to become a household name.
In Connie: A Memoir, Chung reveals behind-the-scenes details of her singular life. From her close relationship with Maury Povich, her husband and professional confident; to the horrific memory of being molested by the doctor who had delivered her; to her joy of adopting their son when she was almost fifty, she does not hold back. She talks honestly about the good, bad, and ugly in her personal and professional life—this is Connie Chung like you’ve never seen her before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pioneering journalist Chung takes an entertaining look back at her career in this winning autobiography. Chung was born to Chinese immigrant parents in 1946 Washington, D.C., the youngest of 10 children, and much of the account traces her arc from shy, self-conscious girl to take-no-prisoners professional who "wanted to be the equal" of her swaggering male peers. She first decided to become a journalist in the late 1960s, after an internship with New York congressman Seymour Halpern exposed her to "the pulsebeat of news events affecting the actions of politicians and Americans' lives." In chatty prose, she charts her professional rise, including her stint as an anchor on local network news in 1976 L.A. Things get juicy in passages covering the 1990s, where she rehashes her tense tenure co-anchoring CBS Evening News with Dan Rather ("an old-fashioned guy who feels women should not get their hands soiled") and her front-row seat to Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer's feuding at ABC. Chung balances these gossipy recollections with the heartbreak of trying to conceive through IVF with her husband, Maury Povich, and clear-eyed musings on the odds against women in the workplace. It's an intimate and rewarding personal history.