Chung lands Condit interview

In the year’s biggest “get” for a television magazine reporter, ABC’s Connie Chung has landed an interview with Democratic Congressman Gary Condit, which is scheduled to be televised on PrimeTime Thursday this week. Condit reportedly granted the interview on condition that it not be edited. Today’s New York Times said that Chung had been “extremely dogged” in pursuing the Condit interview, at one point traveling to Washington to meet the congressman’s attorney. Today’s Wall Street Journal observed that when a network secures a major interview such as the one with Condit, it then usually billboards the show as a special, thereby allowing it to raise rates to advertisers; however, the newspaper noted, in this case it decided against such a strategy, given the soft ad market and the possibility that some advertisers might be uncomfortable with Condit’s “tawdry” story about his relationship with missing intern Chandra Levy.