Connie Chung

"The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and Connie Chung" was supposed to have a local flavor for Baltimore viewers tonight. Chung was scheduled to co-anchor the broadcast from WJZ -- CBS' Baltimore affiliate -- to give the station a ratings boost on the final week of May sweeps.Instead, Rather will be anchoring alone tonight, and it looks as if Chung is out of a job altogether.CBS News President Eric Ober announced Saturday that, as of today, Rather would be anchoring alone. Furthermore, Ober said, Chung's future at the network was uncertain.

The three-minute parody video features Connie Chung as a lounge singer in pink lace atop a piano, bungling a melody about the recently canceled MSNBC show she co-anchored with husband Maury Povich. It's intentionally silly and insipid. Yet unlike Weekends with Maury & Connie, the video has drawn a steady audience. In fact, it's one of the most viewed clips on You Tube.com - a popular free video screening site on the Internet that gives new meaning to short-attention-span theater. YouTube appears to have picked up where Web logging, cell phone cameras and MySpace have left off - satisfying an all but insatiable need for individual expression.

In one breath, CBS anchorwoman Connie Chung says, "I'm having a difficult time, I really am. I haven't figured out yet what my routine should be. . . . I'm not complaining. But I don't know how I'm going to do all the work."In the next breath, Ms. Chung says that in addition to her other duties she is going to spend more time in Washington reporting stories for CBS News."I myself, want to contribute to the effort of breaking stories," she said. "Believe me, when there is so much news breaking out of Washington, I know it's a gold mine, and I still have some sources there.

TV talk-show legend Phil Donahue said he knows his ratings have to turn around soon if his comeback on MSNBC is going to last. "If we don't make noise in six months, it's going to be hard for me to tell my family that I was treated unfairly," Donahue said. Donahue's highly publicized 8 p.m. show is off to a sluggish start in its first six weeks, drawing about half the viewers watching CNN's new entry in the time period, Connie Chung Tonight. Last week, his show averaged 365,000 viewers to Chung's 686,000, according to Nielsen Media Research.

CBS' UNCEREMONIOUS dropping of evening news anchor Connie Chung is generally cited as a prototypical example of sexism. Even TV Guide reports that Ms. Chung alleges that "sexism had played a role in her being fired, citing the example of Barbara Walters."The analogy is correct, but the conclusion is incorrect. Whatever sexism was involved, occurred when Ms. Chung was selected for the job. Her firing merely confirmed that she was the wrong choice -- not because she was a woman.Yet, one might still make a strong argument that CBS discriminated against Ms. Chung because of her gender.

Daytime talkmeister Maury Povich manages a twinkle when he talks about David Letterman's late-night obsession with his wife, CBS news anchor Connie Chung."

The main thing to know about Connie Chung, your soon-to-b CBS nightly news co-anchor, is that she's a babe.A serious, serious babe.Now you probably heard what the boys at CBS News (yes, surprisingly, men run the CBS news shop) had to say about why they gave Chung the job.* It was not because of failing ratings.* It was not because she's a woman.* It was because Dan Rather said that he needed more time to do real reporting and/or buy more sweaters and that Chung was, in the words of CBS News President Eric Ober, the "best available guy" to share the job.You recognize these statements, of course, as lies.

If their mother wanted to spill a bit about the Bad Newt that is embarrassing to the Good Newt, that is neither an indictment of, nor a tribute to, interviewer Connie Chung. Yeltsin wonders why the generals don't carry out his orders. So did Lincoln.

The Sun: Good morning, Miss Chung. Thanks so much for agreeing to have a little chat with us about journalism ethics. We want to get your views on the way these so-called television newsmagazine shows are blurring the line between entertainment and good, solid reporting. Do you agree with Marvin Kalb, one of the most respected correspondents in CBS history, that programs such as yours practice standards of JTC journalism that, generally speaking, are "low and getting lower?"Connie Chung: Well, it's certainly nice to have this chance to liven up The Sun's editorial page.

It took Harry Smith about, oh, a second and a half to accept a guest shot on "Murphy Brown.""I think it's a hoot," said the "CBS This Morning" co-host, the latest big-name new celebrity -- including Connie Chung, Linda Ellerbee and Walter Cronkite -- to appear on the CBS sitcom. "They called out of the blue. It's not something I campaigned for."At first, "Murphy" "was so frighteningly familiar and real, I thought one of the producers on our staff was writing under a 'nom de plume,'" said Smith, 40. "Now it's not as spooky as it used to be. Maybe I'm used to it."

Maybe Gary Condit will have us weeping with him as he tries to save his political career tonight in an interview with ABC's Connie Chung. Maybe his pain will be ours if he convinces us of his regret over a missing Washington intern he once romanced. He's got an honest enough face. But whether he is sincere about his remorse or truthful in his reponses will be difficult to judge, experts say. Even if he blinks more than 50 times a minute, breaking the stress monitor at Joseph Tecce's psychology lab at Boston College, what will it all mean?

Peter Jennings and ABC may be getting all the ink, what with his planned 24-hour stint as host from Times Square and the network's roster of big-name correspondents reporting from all over the globe, but they're not the only game in town.If you plan to celebrate Y2K by plopping yourself in front of a television, you'll have no shortage of choices. Here's a look at how TV's major news-gathering organizations plan on covering the turnover of the millennial clock.ABC (WMAR, Channel 2) -- The alphabet network has the millennium bug bad."

LOS ANGELES -- The good news: Before it had even released a movie, DreamWorks SKG had won an Academy Award.The bad news: It was for a failed TV pilot. "Dear Diary," a sitcom starring Bebe Neuwirth that had been rejected by the networks, won this year's Best Short Film Oscar.Ah, well, the test begins in earnest today, when DreamWorks, the first new major Hollywood studio in 60 years, releases its premier film, "The Peacemaker," a political thriller starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman.

Independence Day could prove a bad day to declare independence from your television, what with cool shows on all over the place. There's something for everybody, and the celebrating starts pretty early, so put down your coffee and turn on the tube."

CBS' UNCEREMONIOUS dropping of evening news anchor Connie Chung is generally cited as a prototypical example of sexism. Even TV Guide reports that Ms. Chung alleges that "sexism had played a role in her being fired, citing the example of Barbara Walters."The analogy is correct, but the conclusion is incorrect. Whatever sexism was involved, occurred when Ms. Chung was selected for the job. Her firing merely confirmed that she was the wrong choice -- not because she was a woman.Yet, one might still make a strong argument that CBS discriminated against Ms. Chung because of her gender.

As soon as the two large cranes finished lifting Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich out of their seats in Claremont, N.H., last weekend, Good Roger and Bad Roger took the stage.Good Roger, the upright and decent side of me, had decided to try to find polite, common ground with Bad Roger, the evil and twisted side of me.Though C-SPAN broke away to cover a meeting of the New Zealand/Papua New Guinea Fisheries Commission, a transcript of the historic meeting follows:Good Roger: First, I'd like to say what a pleasure it is to be here in the Granite State.

The number's up on what is considered to be one of the hottest new collectibles -- paint-by-number "art.""They're part of the consciousness of anybody that's alive in America," says Paul Bridgewater, co-owner of Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery in New York's SoHo district, about the frenzy over the paintings.His gallery is credited with fueling the craze when it held the "world premiere" paint-by-number exhibit in April 1992. Titled "The Fortieth Anniversary of Paint-by-Number Paintings," the exhibit drew 1,000 people on its opening night and set off a media frenzy.

Washington -- IT WAS PROBABLY inevitable that the "Connie Chung question" would come up, even at last Thursday's gala inaugural salute to the new Senate leadership at the gorgeous Corcoran Gallery.The discussion among journalists started when Cable News Networks' press show moderator Bernard Kalb asked several of us whether we would have done what Connie Chung did. Would we have told Newt Gingrich's mother that she should "whisper it to me, just between you and me," as to what "Newtie" really thought of Hillary Clinton?

Is prime-time America ready for Montel Williams as a hard-boiled high school science teacher who hangs pupils out the classroom window when they misbehave?CBS thinks so and announced yesterday that Williams, a Baltimore native, will star in "Matt Waters," an hour-long drama on its new fall schedule. The show is one of five new dramas and six new sitcoms CBS will add in September in an attempt to slow one of the worst ratings collapses in recent network history.CBS Entertainment President Peter Tortorici yesterday labeled his new schedule "young, bold and far-reaching."

"The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and Connie Chung" was supposed to have a local flavor for Baltimore viewers tonight. Chung was scheduled to co-anchor the broadcast from WJZ -- CBS' Baltimore affiliate -- to give the station a ratings boost on the final week of May sweeps.Instead, Rather will be anchoring alone tonight, and it looks as if Chung is out of a job altogether.CBS News President Eric Ober announced Saturday that, as of today, Rather would be anchoring alone. Furthermore, Ober said, Chung's future at the network was uncertain.