Pioneering news anchor and reporter Connie Chung to deliver Knight Lecture, kick off UA’s Honors anniversary events
Connie Chung, the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News and the first Asian to anchor any news program on a major television news network, will appear at The University of Akron (UA) as part of the John S. Knight Lecture Series and the 50th anniversary celebration of honors education at UA.
Chung will participate in a fireside chat-style discussion with UA President R.J. Nemer at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 2, at E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall. The event is free, non-ticketed and open to the public.
In addition to Chung’s broadcast television milestones as a news anchor, she also covered some of the most significant news stories of the past four decades, including presidencies, conventions and campaigns, and many national and international events such as Watergate and Middle East peace negotiations. She is a three-time Emmy winner.
Chung’s appearance, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, will open the University’s celebration of its honors education program, which was founded in 1975 and is now known as the Drs. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Honors College. There will be a ticketed 50th anniversary celebration on Friday, Oct. 3, followed by UA Homecoming and Family Weekend events on Saturday, Oct. 4. More information about the Honors celebration can be found here.
About Connie Chung
Chung’s parents and four older sisters, all born in China, came to the U.S. in 1945. She was born in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 20, 1946. Her career began in 1969 in her hometown at WTTG-TV Metromedia (now Fox), first as a copy person, then newsroom secretary, then newswriter and news reporter.
In 1971, she joined CBS News as a national correspondent for the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.” Based in Washington, D.C., she covered Capitol Hill, the White House, Pentagon, State Department and politics in general.
She was assigned important beats, including the 1972 presidential campaign of Senator George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami and the vice presidency of Nelson Rockefeller. In addition, she covered the SALT II talks in the Soviet Union between President Richard Nixon and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, and Nixon’s final trip to the Middle East. Her most memorable story of that decade was Watergate, the House Judiciary Committee hearings and the subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon.
In 1976, Chung moved to Los Angeles, where she spent seven years anchoring and reporting at KNXT-TV (now KCBS), the CBS-owned and operated station.
She joined NBC News in 1983, anchoring the Saturday edition of the “NBC Nightly News,” “NBC News at Sunrise,” “NBC News Digests,” several primetime specials and a news magazine. While at NBC News, Chung was a political reporter and substitute anchor for “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.” She was a floor reporter at the 1984 presidential conventions and a podium correspondent during the 1988 presidential conventions, and provided political reporting and analysis during the presidential campaigns and Election Night coverage in 1984 and 1988.
Chung rejoined CBS News in 1989 as anchor and correspondent of “Saturday Night with Connie Chung” and also anchored the Sunday edition of the “CBS Evening News.” In 1990, she became the anchor of the Emmy Award-winning CBS News primetime magazine program, “Face to Face with Connie Chung.” During that time, she conducted a series of exclusive interviews, including the first and only national television interview of Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez, which was involved in one of history’s most devastating human-caused environmental disasters, and the first interview with Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson after he announced he was HIV positive.
From 1993 to 1995, Chung was named co-anchor of the “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung.” During that time, she covered the historic Israel/PLO peace signing ceremony at the White House, the Israel/Jordan peace signing ceremony in the Middle East, and she had an exclusive interview with Chinese leader Li Peng on the five-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
While anchoring the Evening News, she also was anchor and correspondent of “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung.” She was a floor reporter for CBS News during the 1992 national political conventions and provided analysis during Election Night coverage in 1990, 1992 and 1994.
In 1997, Chung was a Harvard fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In November 1997, she joined ABC News as co-anchor and correspondent on the ABC News primetime news magazine “20/20.” During the 1999-2000 “20/20” season, she was awarded the Amnesty International Human Rights Award for her report that revealed young women in Bangladesh were being brutally burned with acid in acts of revenge for turning down a man’s advances. Also during the 1999-2000 “20/20” season, Chung won several awards for “Justice Delayed,” an investigative hour that uncovered new information in the 1966 civil rights murder of a black Mississippi farmhand named Ben Chester White. As a result of the new information, the U.S. Justice Department reopened the case and indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced Ernest Avants for the murder. Avants had lived as a free man for three decades, since his acquittal on state murder charges in 1966. In 2001, she conducted a critically acclaimed ABC News interview with Congressman Gary Condit (D-CA) concerning the disappearance of intern Chandra Levy.
In January 2002, Chung joined CNN to anchor “Connie Chung Tonight.” She left on-air duties at CNN in March 2003. Chung and her husband, talk-show host Maury Povich, co-anchored a week-in-review/political program on MSNBC in 2006.
She has received three Emmy Awards, including two for Best Interview/Interviewer. In addition, she is the recipient of a George Foster Peabody Award, honors from American Women in Radio and Television, Outstanding Young Woman of America, Wonder Woman Award and many more. She was named a “Giant of Broadcasting” by the International Radio-TV Society and Womankind’s “Woman of the Year” and has been inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame and the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Chung graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1969. She also has honorary doctorate degrees from Brown University, Providence College, Wheaton College, Norwich University and California Pacifica University.
In May 2023, the New York Times Opinion Section carried a front-page story entitled ‘Generation Connie’. In it, she discovered a generation of Asian parents named their baby daughters “Connie” after her. She never knew about her namesakes and never fathomed the impact she had made. She is overwhelmed and incredibly grateful.
Chung and Povich were married in 1984 and live in Manhattan. Povich is the longest-running daytime talk show host in the history of broadcast television. They have one son, Matthew and two daughters, Susan and Amy.
About the Drs. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Honors College
The mission of The Williams Honors College (WHC) is to inspire intellectually curious scholars within an inclusive community of excellence at The University of Akron. WHC provides unique academic experiences for our students, including opportunities to engage in challenging curricula and research within all academic colleges of the university. WHC fosters an environment that promotes transformational growth through experiential learning, service, cultural experiences, and study abroad. The Honors Experience develops graduates who contribute to their local and global community through their lifelong respect for learning.
About the John S. Knight Lecture at The University of Akron
The John S. Knight Lecture at The University of Akron brings distinguished writers, politicians and other figures of national or international importance to Akron, the hometown of John S. and James L. Knight. The lectureship was established in 1991 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to honor John S. Knight (1894-1981), an Akron newspaperman and publishing genius of the 20th century who built the small, Depression-era Akron Beacon Journal into the publishing empire known as Knight Ridder Inc.
Established in 1950, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. Sustaining informed and engaged communities in a democracy is at the heart of its philanthropic strategy for transformational impact through lasting systemic change.