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By Mark Harris
Mark Harris
Mark Harris
Mark Harris is a writer and former executive editor of EW

Last month, Connie Chung did the seemingly unthinkable: She decided to give up the hard-earned luster of a weekly prime-time news series for the chance to become a first-time mother. Since her debut 20 years ago on a station in Washington, D.C., Chung had worked her way up through the ranks of TV journalists, from CBS Washington correspondent and L.A. anchorwoman in the 1970s to weekend anchor on NBC. Just last year she achieved her crowning success by returning to CBS with her own show, and now she was going to leave the fast track behind. ''Time is running out for me when it comes to childbearing,'' said Chung, who turned 44 on Aug. 20. ''I (have) asked CBS News, for the time being, to lighten my workload.'' Her statement came dressed up with an unusual set of supportive comments from her bosses-the implicit assumption being that skepticism would greet any woman who stepped away from a high-profile on-air job. The struggle to make time for home life and a career is familiar to millions of women who don't have the financial and professional clout of TV journalism's working mothers. The perks of stardom can make things easier, of ! course. But like other working mothers, newscasters with children face long days and tough balancing acts-and they have a nation of viewers checking up on them. In recent months, a number of such women have started fighting to reshape and repace their careers. Jane Pauley has departed the daily grind of Today for a promised weekly series based on this summer's Real Life specials. Maria Shriver has quit Sunday Today to spend more time with her family and create four prime-time specials. These acts of independence may signal a change in the rules for women in TV news. Here is a progress report from five of the best-known: Today's Faith Daniels, former network newswoman Linda Ellerbee, Good Morning America's Joan Lunden, Lifetime's Jane Wallace, and CBS This Morning's Paula Zahn.

At home in Miami, former CBS correspondent Jane Wallace is trying to balance the demands of two needy infants: Zachariah, the 9-month-old son she adopted in December, and The Jane Wallace Show, her 10-month-old weekday series on Lifetime Television. In 1987, Wallace decided to leave her hard- driving job as a reporter on CBS' newsmagazine West 57th and take a sabbatical from her profession. Last fall, when she was ready to return to TV, Lifetime- which seeks a primarily female audience-beckoned as a place where she could explore women's issues. But if Wallace expected the network to make it easier for her to juggle work and single motherhood, she quickly realized it wouldn't happen. When she signed on as a ''freelance contractor'' rather than as an employee, she found she wasn't entitled to a day of unpaid maternity leave. ''At the beginning, I was so sleep-deprived I was ready to join a cult,'' Wallace says. ''A new infant is a 24-hour-a-day, three-person job. I would bring Zach with me to the office, but there was grumbling whenever I took him on the set. If it hadn't been for my executive producer, Jane Oakley, who held the baby so I could do my work, I would have had to quit. She was supportive in ways the company was not.'' To survive, Wallace whittled her days ''down to Zach, the shows, and sleeping.'' Though Wallace, 34, is all for maternity leaves, she doesn't think Chung's decision will have an immediate impact on other women in TV journalism. ''I don't think it's likely,'' she says. ''Everybody talks a great game-family values, blah, blah, blah-but when it comes down to it, there still isn't much respect given. I don't see anyone at the networks holding the door open to . women and saying, 'Have children, have a happy life, and then come back and work for us.' ''It's tough for me, and I have resources. Most of the women in this country don't. It's time we quit viewing having and raising children as a personal indulgence. Right now, a few women with muscle have to use all the muscle they've got to spend time with their children. And when they do step back to raise kids, that raises the god-awful mommy-track specter. It's not my impression that things are getting better.''


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