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This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Tanya Moseley.
Say the name Connie Chung to anyone alive during the peak of television news, and really, you don't have to say much else.
When Chung first appeared on tv in the seventies, it was the first time many Americans had seen an asian woman not only reporting the news, but setting the national conversation with her interviews with heads of state and controversial figures.
For three decades, Chung has been a key player in every major news cycle, covering Capitol Hill, the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.
She's also interviewed influential people dominating the headlines, like in 1991, when she was the first journalist to sit down with magic Johnson just a month after he announced his HIV status.
Connie Chung has written a new memoir that chronicles her expansive career, and she also gives us a behind the scenes look at what it took for her to climb to the top of this male dominated field.
Chung has a great sense of humor, and this memoir, I have to say, is funny and also a little salacious because Chung names names in this book from colleagues and news bosses who crossed her or made her job much more difficult than it needed to be to well known celebrities and politicians who hit on her.
Chung got her start in local television news, and she's worked for almost all of the major television news outlets, ABC, NBC, CNN, and CB's, where she got her start and later became the first woman to co anchor the evening news with Dan Rather.
Her memoir is called Connie.
Connie Chung, welcome to Fresh Air.
Oh, I'm so happy to be with you.
Tanya Moseley, you are a shero in our business and I really appreciate your having me.
Well, this is a pleasure and an honor, Connie.
And it's also surreal because I had a chance to go back and watch elements of your career and so much of your journalism forecasted where we are today.
Journalism really, as we know, is a continuing conversation, but in particular, your 1990 interview with Donald Trump.