Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993 TAG: 9306120340
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Her comments came only hours before CBS announced that she would begin co-anchoring "CBS Evening News" with Dan Rather on June 1. Suddenly she made a big return to the public eye.
"Eye to Eye With Connie Chung," a retooling of "Face to Face With Connie Chung," will be her third CBS magazine show. She also hosted "Saturday Night With Connie Chung."
The afternoon before CBS announced her new anchor job, Chung was focused on "Eye to Eye." Fortunately for her, some of her stories were finished. Her anchoring job would limit her time for news magazine stories.
"I've been out shooting stories like a maniac in the last several weeks," Chung said. "When we go on the air, I will not be able to travel as far or as long, so I've been virtually on the road. The farthest place I've gone is Poland."
Despite Chung's new post, the show should roll along because of its contingent of CBS News correspondents, including Bernard Goldberg, Edie Magnus and Russ Mitchell, and contributors Charles Kuralt, Bill Geist, Harry Smith and Robert Krulwich.
Chung appeared confident that "Eye to Eye" will not fall victim to a programmer's ax.
"I'm not worried about this show," she said. "[CBS Entertainment President] Jeff Sagansky said, `If it doesn't work in one time period, we'll move you to another. We expect you to be a success.' "
Because news-magazine programs are relatively inexpensive to produce and are good deals for the networks, there are several of them already on the air. Rather hosts "48 Hours." The most venerable of the genre are "60 Minutes," dating from 1968, and ABC's "20/20," now in its 16th year.
Two other one-hour news magazines are due to premiere in prime time during the summer and fall: Fox's "Front Page" and "NBC News Magazine" (tentative title), to be anchored by Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric on Wednesdays.
So what will make "Eye to Eye" different from all the other news-magazine shows?
"That's the burning question," Chung said with a laugh. "We don't think we need to be different just to be different. It's good stories, well told. But since there are so many [news magazines] on the air, it's important for us to distinguish ourselves.
"For one thing, we're going to be topical -- news of the day or of the week, we'll try to do. We'll see how well. Pieces will be taped in advance. It's likely that we'll tape the program itself the day of, unless it is a really big story and we think we ought to do it live.
"We are going to vary the length of the pieces. Most of the programs are three pieces and a kicker. People are such channel surfers [switch channels frequently]," Chung said. "Maybe we can drag them back when they leave. We're going to hope they come back, anyway."
One of the two stories Chung gathered in Poland concerned Thomas Keneally's book "Schindler's List," about the late German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to save the lives of 1,300 Jews during the Holocaust.
"Steven Spielberg is making a movie about Schindler," said Chung. "Ours [report] really is quite moving. We interview the Holocaust survivors and the actors who are playing them.
"The other is a marvelous story: Thousands of cars, when they're stolen, end up in Poland. That country has become the fencing capital of the world. We went to this car lot where stolen cars have been confiscated and tracked the people who had their cars stolen. We found a car dealer outside Chicago. While I'm standing in Warsaw at this car lot, I have this white Acura in front of me. I say to him, `Mark, I found your car.'
"He can get it back if he wants to, but it may be that insurance has taken care of it. When the cars end up in Poland, American insurance companies don't bother to get them back."
by CNB