LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - DECEMBER 15: Connie Chung attends the 50th Daytime Emmy Awards at The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Los Angeles on December 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Connie Chung, the first Asian American and second woman to anchor a major network news program, called out her former CBS News co-anchor, Dan Rather, for his “inherent bias against women” in her new book.
Chung’s memoir, Connie, was released Tuesday. In it, she recounts Rather’s direct quote when she started: “I’ll cover the stories out there in the field, and you read the teleprompter.” He also told Chung she would “have to start reading the newspaper” to stay caught up with CBS.
Chung said that since the two were paired together in 1993, he has been condescending and hard to work with. He started a whisper campaign to discredit her among their colleagues. In the two years the pair spent together as co-hosts, Chung reported that Rather was “wound tight and had no sense of humor.”
Chung also referenced her 1995 coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, in response to which Rather spent hours blasting her as a second-rate journalist. In the wake of the incident, Rather gave CBS an ultimatum, and Chung was fired shortly after. Rather claimed there was no connection.
Chung, who has worked at ABC, CNN and MSNBC, among many others, attested that Rather’s misogynistic behavior was normal across the industry. She wrote, “Many men in television news, especially those who became anchormen, contracted a disease: big-shot-itis.”
She continued with the diagnosis, “It was characterized by a swelling of the head, an inability to stop talking, self-aggrandizing behavior, narcissistic tendencies, unrelenting hubris, delusions of grandeur and fantasies of sexual prowess.”
Chung shared what drove her to write the memoir. “My parents were born in 1909 [and] in 1911, in old China, pre-communist China,” she noted. : Their marriage was arranged when she was only 12 and he was 14. They were married at 17 and 19. They had 10 — if you can believe it — children. I was the 10th, the only one born in the United States. They had nine children in China, five of whom died as infants. Three of those infants who died were boys…so they raised five very ballsy women. My father gave me this mission. He said, ‘Maybe you can carry on the name Chung. Tell everybody how we came to the United States.'”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cXqdX4pa74E Former Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff went backstage to meet…
Cher and her boyfriend, AE Edwards, made a dazzling appearance at SNL50: The Anniversary Special on Sunday night in New…
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively made a glamorous red carpet appearance at the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special on Sunday…
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2j7wGMDOa2k At least 17 people were taken to hospital after a Delta Airlines flight arriving…
Floyd Russ, the director of the new O.J. Simpson Netflix docuseries, American Manhunt: OJ Simpson,…
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renee Zellweger, Leo Woodall and Michael Morris attended the Bridget Jones: Mad About…