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Hooo, does Connie Chung have any stories to tell – and a few big names are attached to it.
The former network news anchor, who last appeared on television in 2006, confirmed Thursday on Los Angeles magazine’s “The Originals” podcast that working with heavyweights like Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters of ABC News was nothing like what she had imagined when she joined the network.
“I thought it was going to be great. It will be three women who will get along. So naive, it’s stupid, ”Chung said.
Working with Walters and Sawyer, she said, was like playing a mole game. Only she was the mole.
“I looked up,” she said, “and one of them would have a hammer and go, hit, and drop me, back in my little hole.
Shortly after his arrival, the executives explained how the place worked.
“When I got to ABC, Diane and Barbara were in the same kind of arena trying to get the big three interviews. So when I tried to sue them, I was told I couldn’t, ”Chung said. “That Barbara and Diane were the only ones who could compete for the interviews, and I had to resign.”
Being on her knees by these women, she said, was “not unlike what Tonya Harding did to Nancy Kerrigan.” Chung was referring to one of the tabloid-type stories she was tasked with pursuing. These stories, which were not her choice to cover, would eventually become one of the reasons for her dismissal: she was too “sweet”, they said.
As to whether women in broadcast journalism were, in her experience, second-class citizens compared to men, Chung said, “Big fat duh. At the time, she said, the men “refused to crawl.” They refused to beg for interviews, to try to make people like themselves. They just asked and got.
Periodically, her husband, TV host Maury Povich, had to portray the male state of mind she experienced in the office, as she said she had “this incredible ability to be naïve.”
Chung also had a vivid description of what it was like working with Dan Rather on CBS News.
“If I turned my back, I felt like I was in a scene from ‘Psycho’ in the shower,” she says.
At the end of the podcast, host Andrew Goldman asked Chung to name “the most despicable man” she’s ever worked with. Would she like to say his name?
At that point, the sassy 74-year-old got a little shy.
“I don’t prefer.…, She said.“ I don’t prefer. Rather do not say.”
And thank you, Ms. Chung, for that information.
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