Hello Sunshine.
Hey, Bestie's today on the bright Side. We're talking to legendary broadcast journalist Connie Cheung. She's out with a brand new memoir called Connie, and she's here on the bright Side to offer a glimpse into her trailblazing career and share how she paved a path for both herself and others. Plus, she tells us why everyone needs a mentor or a MARII. It's Monday, September twenty third. I'm Simone Boyce.
I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and brighten your day. On My Mind Monday is brought to you by Missus Meyers Clean Day, inspired by the goodness of the garden.
It's on my Mind Monday, y'all our opportunity to start the week off with some fresh energy and something that motivates us, inspires curiosity, and provides a fresh perspective. Daniel Yeah, what's on your mind today?
Okay, before I tell you what's on my mind, I have a question for you. Two questions actually. The first is what compliment means the most to you? And the second is what compliment is the hardest for you to take or hear.
The compliments that mean the most to me have to do with my brain, my integrity, or my skills as a parent. And the compliment that's hardest for me to hear.
I actually am or like one that makes you uncomfortable.
Let me read it makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, oh my gosh. I mean I can think of so many compliments that have been if you can even call it that, you know, that have been handed to me over the years that have made me uncomfortable. But I think anything related to my appearance, it's not even that it makes me uncomfortable. It's just like, Okay, yeah, I get it, that's the first thing you notice. But let's go let's go deeper, you know.
So I think what you just shared is how so many people feel and know. I have that card game question everything, and that's one of the questions in there. It's a double question. And I put it in there because I think compliments and criticism are at the heart
of our relationships, and you need the right ratio. So I read an article recently from Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic Love Him All about compliments, and he wrote this piece called a Compliment That Really Means Something, where he shares how to properly give a compliment, because he says that when it's done well, words of praise can be a soothing balm of human relations, but done poorly, compliments can be ineffective and even destructive.
Okay, So what does he say is the right way to give compliments?
Okay?
This is the best part. There's three simple rules. The first be honest. He says, compliments are usually rejected when they're not credible or sincere. So before you give somebody a compliment, you got to ask yourself, do I truly believe what I'm going to say to this person? You know, I had a mentor years ago in radio. His name was ro Con in Chicago, and he said to me, don't ever forget Danielle. Audiences have a high bullshit meter, and I've never forgotten it because it's true. And audience
is you know, anybody's your audience. I think people can really feel your intentions.
So true.
So the second rule is make your compliment a pure gift. Arthur writes that for a compliment to be honest, you have to make it without asking or expecting anything in return. And the third is avoid qualification. So don't compare a person with someone else or with a standard benchmark. So, for example, don't say something like you look good for your age or your work.
Is better than I expected.
I actually did this the other day at the end of one of our interviews. I told somebody that they were different than what I anticipated them to be. In as soon as it flew out of my mouth, I was like.
That was the worst compliment.
And I meant it as a compliment, but it came out so wrong.
So I actually really believe in these three rules.
I want to talk about the make your compliment a pure gift part. I don't know if I'm down for this. I'll tell you, what do you mean If I tell you I like your outfit, that is my invitation for you to tell me the details. I'm asking for the details, sys don't get keep that's what I expect.
I feel like that's a follow up question. I hear you.
You know, my grandmother does something that makes me so annoyed. If anybody tells her that they like her shoes or her outfit or whatever, she tells them exactly where she got it from and exactly how much your.
Cost down to the ninety nine cents right.
Yes, And she's like, oh, I got it on set, and I'm like, just say thank you, Oma, just say thank you.
See, I think that's a generational thing because I do think that older women, older people, it's mostly older women, like they want to tell you how good, how deep the discount was, you know, if they want you to know, which is so funny deal. Yeah, exactly.
You know.
I have one more little addendum because of what you shared at the beginning of this about compliments surrounding your appearance.
He actually talks about this in the piece, and.
He said, even if that's our first instinct, instead of complimenting somebody's appearance, consider complimenting what psychologists call moral beauty, so a characteristic that's reflected in courage or forgiveness, or charity or acts of kindness.
And this is a little bit harder done than said.
Because if you just meet somebody, you don't know if they're courageous, you don't know those types of things. You may just be trying to connect and say like, hey, I love your shoes. But if you are complimenting somebody that you know I think it's always nice to be really detailed about the compliment and to give it moral beauty instead of you know, surface beauty.
I love this. This was this was such a great thought starter. Thank you.
I'm so glad you liked it.
Thanks to money, well, I could give compliments all day to our guest today. It's the one and only Connie Chung. Y'all. She made history in nineteen ninety three when she became the first Asian and second woman to ever anchor a major weekday news program in the US, and her relentless pursuit of stories landed her exclusive interviews throughout her career, including one with President Nixon during the Watergate scandal and
another with basketball star Magic Johnson. But navigating this predominantly white male industry as an Asian woman was not easy, and Connie Chung experienced a lot of overt sexism and racism during her career. It's really wild to think about the sexism being that overt, because I think you and I hopefully have experienced a more covert form of it, as conversations around this topic have really escalated in our
culture lately. But I'm sure things were radically different when Connie Chung was coming up.
I think about what was overtly and covertly said and done as I was coming up, and I can't even imagine what she dealt with.
But she details some of.
That and a whole lot more in her new memoir titled Connie, A book that's Connie like you've never seen her before. After spending so many years telling other people's stories, She's finally ready to tell her own, and Simona and I are so excited to hear her tell it in her own words.
It's coming up after the break.
Stick with us thanks to our partners at missus Myers, you can learn a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus Myers's collection of household products are inspired by the garden and pack a punch against dirt and grime. Visit missus Myers dot com. Connie John, Welcome to the bright Side. Thank you, thank you.
I can't tell you how happy I am to be with you, and thank you for having me.
Connie. We're so excited to have you.
Simone and I are both journalists and it feels like we have royalty in the house.
So thank you, get out.
Thank you for saying that But seriously, I've enjoyed your call them broadcasts for your podcasts. I mean I listened to a few so that I, you know, be prepared.
Because you're a good journalist.
Well, you know, I think that's key. It really is preparation. It's disrespectful to me if you do not find out a little bit about the people who are interviewing you.
Well, I can't wait to hear some more of your career secrets. But first I want to start with this. We've all watched you tell other people's stories for years on TV, telling Americans stories through tragedy through triumph. Why did you decide that now was the time to write a memoir and tell your own story?
Well, for years I told my husband I wanted to do stand up to tell my story.
You would be so good at that stand up as a stand up comedy.
Yes, but tell my story in a one woman program I show. And my husband said, absolutely not, you can't do that. I said, why you're so wrong? And I said, are you afraid I'll make a fool of myself? And he said there is that risk? And I thought, oh you, And so I decided, he said, I really think you should write a book first, and then you can do your stand up. And so when I went back and looked at my father had written me a letter and
he liked doing that. He liked writing letters to my sisters and me, so we could keep it for posterity. And basically he said in his letter, perhaps you can tell the story of how the Chug family came to you the United States, and maybe you can carry on the family name the way boys do. And I thought, well, because he had written a bit of an autobiography, so I read it over and I thought, well, maybe I can do that, particularly because my parents had in China.
They had ten children, five of them died as infants, three of whom were boys, and girls are not wanted in China sadly, very chauvinistic society. So I actually realized that I had taken him seriously with that mission. So I decided that I would actually fulfill my parents' dreams and become the son that they never had because filial piety was so strong in my very Chinese home. So off I went running to write my book. My husband would tease me, you know Maury, Maury Povich.
Oh, yeah, we know, Maury. We've heard of them.
It's been determining the paternity of every freaking child in America. Yeah, you know, Maury, you are the father. You are not the father, but I guarantee you he has a wider vocabulary than that.
I have to tell you.
I don't think it's fair that he told you you're not allowed to do stand up exactly. Who was Maury Povich to tell Knnie Chung that precisely?
I thank you very much. Will you I will invite you over to Dinny and you can tell him that.
Oh yeah, happily, thank you.
Leave.
Connie.
I know, I know we're all joking around, but you did say something that really struck me, and you said you wanted to become the son that the Chung family didn't have. I'm curious what did that mean to you throughout your career because it's beautiful and it's a lot of pressure.
At the same time, I was filled with guilt, you know, good old fashioned guilt that one's parents can lay on you heavily. But it's the same time, it really kind of worked, Danielle, because when I started working, I found myself in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies among what I call a sea of men. It was all men. Men in the newsroom. Maybe there was one black male, but there certainly weren't any minorities. And there were maybe one woman, but not someone who was so young and
thirsty and eager, like an eager beaver. So there I stood among the sea of primarily white men who were my colleagues in the newsroom, who were my competitors in the field. And the men ho I was covering because it was in Washington, d c. Men at the White House, men on Capitola Hill, men at the State Department, men at the Pentagon. So I decided because as I looked around, all I saw were guys, I thought, well, why can't I be one of them? You know, I'm just going
to be guy, So I'll be this time. My parents never had, but I will perceive myself as a guy. There I was. They were wearing staid suits with wings tips, and they had stentorian voices, and I was in polyester bell bottom's miniskirts and stiletto is, trying to be eyeball eyeball because I did not want to have to look up at them, you know, it was meaning to do so, so I took on their characteristics. I had their bravada. I would walk into a room with confidence. I owned
the room. I was bold, and I was sassy, and I was body and I had a potty mouth. They didn't know what to do with me because here I was as little Ludus blessom, and I wasn't behaving the way they expected me to behave like a dautiful little Chinese style, And so taking pages from their playbook worked for me. I really became a guy in my mind, so much so that when I walked past a mirror or a storefront, I'd be shocked to see a Chinese woman staring back at me.
Connie, you grew up in the DC area in the fifties and sixties, and that was a time of tremendous social change. One of the things that I think is the most gratifying about being a journalist is that you're a first draft historian. Oh yes, are there any seminal moments from history that you reported on that you think about to this day?
Ordergate it was an extraordinary time because the presidency was at stake, very simply, and I think all of us felt the huge responsibility of not reporting anything inaccurate because the presidency was at stinct and I covered the House Judiciary Committee hearings into the impeachment of Richard Nixon. And there's this iconic photograph of me. Have you seen it? Yes, yes you have.
So there's a photograph of one of your meetings with Nixon, and you were with the other members of the Press corps. But everyone else in the shot is a white man. Yeah, except for you. It's crazy.
Was it crazy at the time? Did anybody notice how crazy it was? Because we look back on I didn't think it was crazy.
Yes, I think that they realized that I was an art art I was not sitting there like a plant either. I was vocal. I actually would speak up, and I'd ask tough questions. And I think my whole being was so antithetical to what they thought this little China dolls should be like. It kind of stopped people in their tracks. But then once they got used to, you know, this pestive or person of me, I got some acceptance. It
was grudging, you know, it was a grudging acceptance. I continued having to prove myself, which is something that I find women are perpetually settled with having to prove ourselves. No matter how old we are, or how seasoned we are, or how experienced.
I completely agree with what you said about living a life of feeling like you have to prove yourself at every turn, and then when you pivot, you got to prove it yourself again. And hopefully we live a life where we are always evolving and always pivoting and always growing. But I think the most telling part of that equation for me is who are you trying to prove this too? Is it to yourself? Is it to other people? Is it to your family? Who was it for you?
Who is I trying to prove it to you? I think your correct I was trying to prove it to myself. Not that I had imposterous syndrome, was just I wanted to have genuine confidence in myself, which I think is very hard to do because as a woman and as someone who's Chinese, I found myself second guessing myself all the time. I have a perpetual should have could have?
What a personality? And when I would come away from an interview, I'd say, yeah, I should have asked this, and I should have asked that, and I forgot to
ask this. It's striving for perfection, which I think afflicts many women because men, I believe, think that they are perfect already, and I think we're always striving for perfection, and a sooner we realize that being perfect is not necessary, that it's actually a somewhat fruitless goal because there's no such thing just doing anything perfectly.
During the height of the Me Too movement, you were asked if you were sexually harassed and your reply was, oh, yeah, oh sure, yeah every day. I mean a lot, especially when I started out and now getting to talk to you, I understand the intonations of that, but I think that those experiences shape us, whether we want to admit it or not.
When I was starting out.
I just recently started reflecting on this, because when you have a goal, you just move forward. You don't think about things, you don't have time to necessarily feel them or reflect. You just move forward. And in hindsight, I was harassed so much. Really, Oh my god.
What year would you say?
This was twenty thirteen. I started working and I was harassed up, I'd say through the Me Too movement. Things changed after that, but I moved into women's spaces, and I think it was in part because of that. I didn't want to deal with it anymore. And that was twenty thirteen. Connie, I cannot imagine what you dealt with the shouldow would have could have in hindsight, how do you think about that? Do you wish you would have dealt with it differently? And what exactly were people doing and saying?
The sexist remarks were really pretty blatant, and they were daily, and it was everything from a stupid sort of leering
but in a joking fashion. So I had this thing whereby I would make a joke to them or shock them with a gotcha before they got me, and so it was a preemptive strike, and it would be so I was shocking to their little virgin ears that I would that they they couldn't believe that I had the audacity to say something rude, I mean rude to them before they could to me, and they would, you know, just sort of be shocked. They had no response. And
then the racist ones were equally as bad. You engage in yellow journalism, you slanth the news and dragon lady, and they thought they were the first ones to ever come up with those phrases. I mean, duh, no, you're not that clever. I mean, you're not clever at all. I've heard them all my life.
Did they affect you?
No?
You know what. I was so focused. It's weird how focused I was. It broke the tension for me because I was so freaked and nervous about what I was going to write, how I was going to write this story, whether I could get it done, whether I'd done it correctly. I actually found it. It was a good mo for me back in the late sixties and seventies, because it would be wholly unacceptable today, but back then it was what it was. I'll tell you one incident when I
was covering George McGovern's campaign against Richard incident. I would always be in my room pretty early so that I could get a good night's sleek. So the next morning i'd be bright and cheerful and ask the first question of the candidate. And then I noticed that a lot of the men were getting scoops. So I would call the Washington Bureau and ask the overnight desk what happened
overnight so I can ask the candidate about it. They tell me that there was a big New York Times article or a big Washington poster or Boston Globe article, and I thought, how did they get that story? I realized the guys were going down to the bar, getting drunk with the campaign workers and getting them to spill the beans. So that did it. I was down at the bar, you know, I was not getting a good night's sleep anymore. I was trying to drink them under
the table. So I took on these characteristics of the men, and I just became one of the guys. One time in the bar, a guy was so drunk he kept coming around and being a pest, and finally I looked at him and said, you don't want to sleep with me. An hour later, you'll want to do it again.
And then.
The whole table of guys applauded, and they just knew that I could come back more badass than they could. And it's not something to be proud of. It's just it was my mo to survive.
Yeah, you also have that wit, so it worked for you.
Do you feel like you ever got to fully be yourself because of the ways that you had to, you know, act like your male colleagues in order to just survive in that industry.
A friend of mine told me, you know, the first one through the door faces the heaviest gunfire, and I realized in writing the world that that's what was happening to me. But yes, I was finally myself. After weaving through the jungle. I had to cut down a lot of trees to create a path, but I would whack them, you know, right and left. But I still took pages from the male playbooks, like for instance, Madeline Albright said one time she was the first woman's Secretary of State.
She said, mehan, she was on the National Security Council. She was afraid to speak up. Can you imagine Meddline Albright afraid to speak up? She said she would sit there and some guy would say the same thing she was thinking, and she'd go, darn, I should have said it. And you know, I realized that's what I do. I get fra You know, I don't think I can say that because maybe it'll be stupid. Man say stupid things all the time. Everybody goes, Yosh, good thought.
Joe, Well, I want to ask you about one of your male colleagues. Yeah, you made history as the first Asian woman to co anchor the CBS Evening News in nineteen ninety three alongside Dan Rather. Yeah, and you had a complicated relationship with him. What was it like anchoring with someone that you're having friction.
With the relationship was quite superficial in many ways, in that he was on the surface very gracious and friendly. But you know, I'm no DOMI. I could see behind the facade very easily. I had known him for years prior to sitting side by side. In fact, one of my girlfriends, Leslie Stall, who is still in sixty minutes, she said, I don't think he would have been happy with anyone sharing the seat with him, because he had
had that seat all by himself for many years. I was more than thrilled to sit and have for Walter Crodcast's chair. I never thought that would ever happen. You know, it was a big cherry on top of my cake. So I wasn't about to say no, I don't think so.
You spent all those years proving yourself. Whenn't you finally got that chair? Did you finally feel worthy?
I was under the silly illusion that I was equal and that the other two anchormen, Tom Brookeclaw and Peter Jennings considered me to be there equal. Nah. I now realized that that was really never the case, and of course makes me sad. I was riding a nice high of that roller coaster, and it was so much fun to cover major stories and to believe that there were many people out there who felt as if I had broken some ceiling. But unfortunately, you know, we're back to
males anchoring the three network newscasts. Not that three network newscasts mean anything today. The media has changed so much. The paradigm has altered our entire media universe. It's just not the same. Yeah, I think I was in the news business at the best time.
You really were, thanks to Danielle and I came in after her, and it was not great. You had the.
Yeah, but I don't blame you, But I think you make a great point though. I mean, Nora O'Donnell just stepped down from CBS Evening News and they replaced her with two men, And I mean Katie Kirk wrote a op ed about it in the New York Times. It's right, it feels like we're going backwards.
Yeah. Yeah, it's depressing, it really is. But I don't give I won't give up. You know, I don't think anybody should give up. We can find our comfort zones and our niches, which you all have found so beautifully. You know, that's one of the reasons why if the Bridside is sponsored by Witherspoon, Right, Yeah, I mean she's pretty dark, not pretty darn amazed. She's amazing. I mean, look at how much she has done.
She's changing the strata she is.
Yeah, she one person, she has changed everything. One woman at a time, or one program at a time, or one news outlet at a time, we really can change the nature of our world. You're listening to The Brideside with Connie chan stay with.
Us, and we're back with Connie John.
You were really great friends with Barbara Walters, two women who changed things. Yes, what do you think it was that connected you too?
So much?
I was someone who she very much related to, and I related to her because I became the breadwinner for my family and because her father's nightclubs tanked, she became the breadwinner of her family. And so we both had to have our jobs. And we put up with the sexism, and she put up with ageism, and I put up with the racism just because we needed the paycheck. We both adopted a baby because we both forgot to. I mean I forgot to have a baby, but first I
forgot to get married. Then I forgot to have a baby.
Love the wording of that so much forgot to have a baby.
No, it really was. I had it not been for my husband and said I think you want a baby, and I was like, no, no, don't take my basket tool pills away from me. And I said, I'm a convention to cover an election, to cover it's it. Come on, well, if.
Anybody knows how babies are made, it's it's Mary Y.
Well, he's my baby daddy. And Barbara was the first to co anchor the evening news on ABC with a guy who despised her, and I was the first at CBS with a guy who despised me. We both lasted two years and then we were we were yanked off. So when when I was stumped, you know, only she could comfort me. She had this incredible ability to sort of just say the right thing.
Well, Connie, I feel like you two did what nobody had done before, and you probably related to each other in a way nobody else could.
Yeah.
When I think about her signature, there was always a question behind the question. She would ask you something, but she was getting to something else.
Yes, yes, what was your signature?
Oh? Unfortunately people would walk out on me. They weren't expecting a tough question. Have you ever seen you got to go on YouTube Bill Gates jumps over a chair from a standing position. I asked him to do that. You got to see it. It's hysterical.
She wanted you to like yesterday as I was proging to this interview. Yes, but give me the context. Why did he Why did you ask him to do that? Oh?
Because I heard that he could jump over a chair from a standing position, and so I asked him to do before we got into the interview. When I got into the interview, I was really tough on him because at the time he was getting a lot of heat for unceremoniously gobbling up other little companies. So he walked out. Yeah, where'd you go? Tanya Harding walked out on me? I mean, there is a number of people walked out on me, and it's actually I considered it a badge of honor.
Did you feel that way in the moment or is that something that's come to you as you've looked back on it.
A little of both. I mean, I think as soon as it happens, it's a little bit shocking. I would I say, yeah.
Yeah, I know that feeling for sure. You know, we started this conversation with you sharing how you wanted to please your family and how you wanted to really bring dignity to the family name and be the standard bearer of the Chung name and be the son that your family never had, and that I want to talk to you about this New York Times article about Generation Connie. It's about a whole group of young Asian American women from the eighties who were named Connie as a tribute
to you. And I just think it's so beautiful and poignant and just magnificent that you wanted to be the son that your parents never had, and now there's an entire generation of women who are named after you. What does this mean to you?
It's really quite extraordinary. I didn't know when I really got into writing my book. I didn't know how it was going to end, you know, I didn't have this perfect to ending. And I mean there were so many times that I would come home and say to Mauri, you know, I you know what this guy said to me today, And it was like there was this great wonderful Sissy space movie. It was called Crimes of the
Heart and she played a sister named Babe McGrath. And when one of her sisters came home, she said, why why Babe, why did she stick your head in the oven? And Babe Sissy say says, I don't know. I had a bad day. So what I would do is come home and say, Maury, I had a bad day. And he would say, do I need to remove the sharp outrojects from the kitchen? And I thought, I can't end
my book like that. So when a woman named Connie cold emailed me, she said when she was about three, one of her parents had come from China and they settled in the Midwest. They said to her, at only three, you need an American name. What name would you like to be? And she said she knew what she saw on television, and she said Connie or Elmo. Fortunately her parents selected the human instead of them uppet. And then she became a curious reporter, and she began to notice
this peculiar phenomenon that other people were named Kanie. So she's such a good writer. She wrote this piece, as you said, for the New York Times Opinion section when I learned of this, I couldn't believe it. Really, it was as if a star had fallen out of the sky. It was as if she were tinker Bell and she had sprinkled some fairy just on me and anointed me with this incredible denouement actually to my book and giving me the confidence that I actually could possibly declare success.
And because I honestly, this is I think a Chinese thing and a woman thing, I could never go I am you know the way men do. I'm a success. I'm a triple, double, quadruple success. I had this, and I did that. I can't do that. I just could never do that. But now the Connie generation, because these parents see me as a success, I think maybe I can get my arms around this and own it. And I have girlfriends who keep saying, would you please own it?
And my husband constantly say, you're the Jackie Robinson. I no, I'm not, really, we're not. For my husband not only determine any the paternity of a rich child in America, but being so supportive really in building me up when I was so down, I honestly I could not have gotten to the end of the tunnel, you know, it's a wonderful thing. I say that everybody needs a mentor or a more.
Oh that's so beautiful.
Thanks, he's a good guy.
I do hope you own it, Connie.
Connie Chung, thank you so much for joining us on the bride Side. Truly one of our brightest, best episodes yet.
Yeah, oh, thank you, Thank you so much.
Connie Chung is a veteran journalist and former anchor at CBS News. Her new memoir Connie is out.
Now that's it for today's show.
Tomorrow, we're joined by actor and Emmy winning producer Laverne Cox. She's talking all about her role in the new Netflix film Uglies.
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram, at the bright Side Pod on TikTok, and feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at Danielle Robey. We'll see you tomorrow. Keep looking on the bread side.