In New Book, Connie Chung is Taking on an Important Story: Her Own (Exclusive)

As she approached the daunting task of writing her memoir, journalist and news anchor Connie Chung knew what would help her get the job done. “What I needed was a deadline,” Chung, 78, tells PEOPLE. “We journalists live and die according to deadlines. And as soon as I got a publisher, that’s when I knew I had to push the pedal all the way and really go for it.”Conniewhich comes out Sept. 17 from Grand Central Publishing, has been a long time in the making, says its author. Covering her expansive career in television news as the first Asian-American and second woman to co-anchor the national evening news, the book delves into her role as a trailblazer as well as her life off-camera. Chung, the youngest of 10 children, five of whom died in infancy, grew up in Washington, DC, where her family immigrated from China in 1945. Her father was a former spy in the intelligence department of Chiang Kai-shek’s government before the Communist takeover and he was “addicted to the news,” says Chung. Growing up in the capital also led to her fascination with the media industry. Chung was an avid reader The Washington Post and always curious about what really goes on behind the closed doors of the city.

‘Connie’ Connie Chung.

Grand Central Publishing

“I really felt like that was where I wanted to be: a rubber-slipper reporter, an old-timer who could run down the marble steps of the Capitol and try to find out the secrets that people were keeping from us,” she says. As a shy child, Chung’s decision to pursue a career in journalism surprised her family, but after graduating from the University of Maryland in 1969, she landed her first job at local news station WTTG-TV Channel 5.

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“It’s mostly coincidence, and actually luck, that something prompts a person to go down a certain path,” she says. “But I believe that everything that happened in my career was destined.”

The PEOPLE Puzzler has arrived! How fast can you solve it? Play now! During her decades-long career, Chung went on to co-anchor on major news platforms such as ABC, CBS and NBC. As a reporter, she covered presidential campaigns and the Watergate scandal and as host of her own news shows, including Face to face with Connie Chungshe got sought-after exclusive interviews with the likes of actor Marlon Brando (“I was just shocked at how disrespectful he was in his profession”) and former NBA player Magic Johnson after his HIV diagnosis in 1991. Chung was often one of the few – if not the only – woman and Asian American in these rooms, which she says she constantly had to balance with her work.

Connie Chung in a promotional photo for NBC News at Sunrise.

NBC/Getty

“I was bold and brave in my work and I tried to be just like men who were confident and self-assured, walked into a room and owned it and were respected just because they were men,” she says. “And yet at home I was this obedient little Chinese daughter who really listened to her parents.” And though Chung says she often wanted to be “one of the guys” like her co-stars, speaking up didn’t always seem like a viable option. “, says Chung. “If we are, I think women [in the newsroom] may have been excommunicated.”

Chung also writes about the difficulties of balancing work and personal life. After experiencing multiple miscarriages, the key moment for her came in 1995. That year, Chung was fired from her job at CBS Evening News, while she and her husband, journalist and television host Maury Povich, adopted their son Matthew.

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“I did it backwards, but it turned out perfect for me,” she says. “First I forgot to get married, and then I forgot to have a child. And so I ended up with a career – a long, successful career. And then I had a long, successful period of raising my son.” One of her biggest supporters today is Povich, whom Chung has been married to since 1984. The two first met while working at WTTG-TV Channel 5, where Povich was a co-host and Chung was a copycat, but it wasn’t until years later that they started a long-distance relationship before getting married.

Maury Povich and Connie Chung.

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty

“He has a wider vocabulary, I assure you, than ‘You are the father’ or ‘You are not the father,'” jokes Chung Maury host. “He’s a voracious reader and he’s a very solid reporter … he takes his job seriously, but he always told me, don’t take yourself so seriously … I think that’s how we stayed grounded.” But despite that bond, Chung admits they still have differences of opinion. “If we fight at night, he wants to make up before we go to sleep. But when I wake up in the morning, I want to keep fighting. I’m not done,” she says. “I think many women are like that anyway. You have to pull it out.”

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With her memoir now out in the world, Chung says she’s looking forward to a “more normal life” again. Her son, now 29, recently got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, and Chung is also ready to spend more time with Povich.

Connie Chung.

Photo by Connie Aramaki/Coco

“I was pretty crazy with this book and I struggled while writing it, I struggled to finish it, and then all the things later that I didn’t know existed in this writing process,” says Chung. But when she looks back on all that, the host has some advice for her younger self, as well as for journalists who follow in her footsteps.

Never miss a story — subscribe to PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. “If I had to [it] Again, I wouldn’t be so cooperative,” she says. “I would suggest to many women that they should speak up and not be insecure about themselves, [and] believe that you can do it just as well as people – because you can.” “Whoever gets in the door first faces the heaviest fire, but there’s always a benefit,” adds Chung. “And the benefit I experienced was incredible.”

Connie is now available wherever books are sold.

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Source: HIS Education