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Connie Chung

Kurtz Questions Whether CNN Business Strategy 'Viable'

By Mark Finkelstein | May 23, 2010 | 16:06

It's turned into something of a week for TV hosts, if not to bite, then at least to nibble hard on the hands that feed them . . .

First, as noted here, on Friday Joe Scarborough passed along the comment of an unnamed conservative biggie who wondered "what the hell [Rand Paul] was doing on MSNBC?", where during an interview with Rachel Maddow he caused controversy with his comments on the Civil Rights Act.

Today, it was Howard Kurtz's turn.  In the wake of Campbell Brown's withdrawal from CNN, in which she cited her show's poor ratings, Kurtz, host of Reliable Sources also on CNN wondered whether the network's business strategy of offering news in contrast to the opinion-oriented programming on Fox News and MSNBC is "viable."   For good measure, Kurtz also managed to suggest that Brown, Connie Chung and Paula Zahn—all of whose CNN shows failed—weren't strong enough personalities to attract an audience during the 8 PM hour, up against the likes of O'Reilly and Olbermann. Ouch!
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Sally Quinn on the Sexists Oppressing Katie Couric

By Tim Graham | September 12, 2006 | 10:51

Washington Post "staff writer" Sally Quinn -- better known as the wife of the retired longtime WashPost Executive Editor Ben Bradlee -- lamented on the front of Tuesday's Style section that Katie Couric is battling sexism in the media culture: "The buzz about Katie Couric has an oddly familiar ring to me. And to Barbara Walters, Connie Chung, Lynn Sherr and Judy Woodruff -- all of us women who have sat in a news anchor chair." It doesn't seem to matter that Couric makes more money and drew way more promotion from the CBS brass. She's still oppressed somehow.

What followed was a chorus of laments from these pioneering TV news women that nothing has changed in 30 years. Some of these laments suffer when compared to the facts. For example, Quinn wrote:

The Truth about Connie and Dan

By Mithridate Ombud | June 23, 2006 | 20:17

There is much speculation about the synchronized flame-out of Connie Chung and Dan Rather. Melanie McFarland of the Seattle PI says: "Different as their career trajectories may have been for a time, Chung and Rather's respective undoing are, in the end, the same. They held on for too long."

That's almost right. They did stick around longer than much of the public was willing to accept. But that wasn't what destroyed them. SB at Media Orchard seems to take great offense at the article and claims that Rather was forced out by a hate campaign and Connie was forced out because she is getting old and "viewers don't like to watch older women read the news -- period." That's way off. Hate campaigns don't destroy people, ask Howard Stern. Katie Couric will be 50 soon and Diane Sawyer is over 60 so you can scratch that misogynistic tripe. Here's what really did in Dan and Connie: bias.

On January 25, 1988, Dan Rather attacked then Vice-President George HW Bush. The country saw the true colors of agenda driven "objective reporters." It didn't hurt Bush, he went on to be President, but it sure didn't help Rather. For a huge segment of society, that moment defines Dan Rather. As McFarland said, Dan held on for too long after that. He seems like a nice guy, and the colloquialisms make him seem like your demented uncle in an almost endearing way. But he became legend for his agenda driven stories, and it wasn't until he shamelessly demanded that obviously MS Word-produced documents were from the 70s that we all said enough is enough. That's it. We can't trust Dan as far as a frog can toss his pockets. Meanwhile, I don't know who doesn't think of Newt Gingrich's mom when they look at Connie Chung. That moment sealed her fate, never again would she be truly trusted with our news.

So let that be a lesson to journalists across the country. Maybe they know they are getting away with something and like-minded peers won't stop them. I'm willing to give journalists the benefit of the doubt that maybe they don't realize they're biased, but that's no excuse. Hopefully journalists, print and broadcast, will learn from Dan and Connie: if you want to be straight news reporters, leave your agenda at home or it will be the end of you... or your newspaper.

Chung, Rather Show How Not to End a Career

By Matthew Sheffield | June 22, 2006 | 12:10

Reality often is stranger than fiction, the saying goes. An author writing the story of former anchor partners Dan Rather and Connie Chung's lives would never have had the temerity to have them both get canned within a week of each other. Not after the two's well-known history of bickering and fighting with each other. Yet that's exactly what happened. Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV critic Melanie McFarland looks back at the twighlight of both discarded anchors (Diskussionsleitersdämmerung?), realizing that between Rather's delusions and Chung's bizarre singing debut, the former duo provide another lesson in how not to behave:

More than a decade has passed since Dan Rather and Connie Chung had us shaking our heads at the obvious tension when they briefly shared an anchor desk between 1993 and 1995.

Rather won in the end, using a nasty behind-the-scenes campaign to force out his co-anchor. He remained at CBS; she jumped to ABC and later to cable.

Nobody would have guessed their separate and drastically declined careers would share headlines again -- and in the same week. [...]

Many are the lessons of how to begin a journalism career. These two showed us how not to end one. Different as their career trajectories may have been for a time, Chung and Rather's respective undoings are, in the end, the same. They held on for too long. And you know what happens when you overstay your welcome: You get cast out with a rough push instead of a friendly wave.

This is truer of Rather's departure, of course. Given his inglorious step down from CBS's anchor chair, a muffled exit was inevitable. The 74-year-old newscaster insists he's not done and has announced his intention to host a weekly interview program on Mark Cuban's high-definition channel, HDNet, where he will be watched by a few thousand, if he's lucky. He told The New York Times that he's contemplating a blog.

Which means, to you and me, that he's done. [...]

Connie Chung, In Evening Gown, Sings Goodbye to MSNBC Audience

By Tom Johnson | June 19, 2006 | 16:45

It's not especially newsworthy that Connie Chung and Maury Povich's Saturday program on MSNBC, which debuted in January, has been canceled. Perhaps no more newsworthy, but definitely more amusing, is that on the show's final episode this past weekend, Chung, as she danced on top of and around a piano, bade her audience farewell in song, to the tune of "Thanks for the Memories." (Hat tips: Drudge and NRO's The Corner.)

To be fair, Chung sings better than Elaine Benes danced. That said, watch this and you'll appreciate Bob Hope (not to mention Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys) more than you ever did before. (Monday's New York Post printed some of her lyrics.)

Video clip (3:00): Windows Media (2 MB lower quality at 81 kbps), Real (5.4 MB at higher 225 kbps quality) or MP3 audio (930 KB)