Broadcast News

For Connie Chung, Diane Sawyer's appointment as the second woman to solo-anchor a network evening newscast is just as historic as when current CBS News anchor Katie Couric broke the gender barrier three years ago and plopped herself into the chair once occupied by Walter Cronkite. As the second woman to co-anchor an evening news telecast (with Dan Rather on The CBS Evening News, 1993-1995), Chung has a strong sense of how the anchor desk sits at the crossroads of history. "Katie broke ground, but what has happened today with Diane means Katie's appointment wasn't just an aberration or a token gesture, not that anyone thought it was," Chung told NEWSWEEK shortly after news broke that Sawyer would succeed Charles Gibson on ABC's World News Tonight. "But what breaks the ceiling is not just having one male cheerleader on the squad. We have never seen two women solo anchors on the networks' flagship program[s]."

 

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In an era of high-value analysis and commodity news, Chung has a blunt take on the larger meaning of Diane Sawyer as the face of ABC News. "This signifies that the age of dinosaur behavior in the news industry is over," says Chung, who is a longtime Sawyer acquaintance. "The network-news flagship program has been the last vestige of the dark ages. The anchor has always been traditionally a male—a white male." Today, Chung, 63, is largely out of the network-news spotlight. At CBS, she anchored the Saturday telecast of The CBS Evening News and two prime-time series, Face to Face With Connie Chung and later Eye to Eye With Connie Chung. These days, she jokes, she does little beyond "sponging off of my husband," television host Maury Povich. Chung spoke by phone with NEWSWEEK's Johnnie L. Roberts about TV newswomen, former co-anchor Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS, and, um, antler chandeliers.

Does Sawyer's promotion mark any other firsts?
I'm reminded that Diane is 63 or 64, because I'm 63, and we're the same age. I'm thrilled that a woman in her early 60s is taking on a significant job in the TV news business. That age was always considered to be fine for men, but questionable for women. That's another barrier broken. Diane's ascension is another nail in the coffin of old-school television news, and the good-ol'-boy network. And that's good. That's spectacular.

But anchors today don't have nearly the clout they once did, right?
I only wish this occurred at a time when network news was dominant. But now with Katie, Diane, and Brian Williams [of NBC Nightly News], perhaps there will be enough viewer interest to return some of the dominance. I don't know if the pendulum will ever swing completely [back]. We'll never all sit and watch evening news [in numbers] like Cronkite use to attract. Life has changed regarding how people get their news.

If they can't help grow the audience, won't it be unfortunate that two women will have to battle for ratings?
I wouldn't put it that way. To isolate the two is a chauvinistic approach to create a catfight between two women. That will not be the case. The fact is, it will be a three-way battle. There will be no fingernails. Brian will not be putting on a skirt. There will be no mudslinging, only professionalism from all three of them. And that's the way it should be viewed.