THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

A 17-year veteran of ABC 7's award-winning news team, Yu came to Channel 7 after a successful stint with WMAQ-TV ( NBC 5 ) in Chicago, where she served as co-anchor for that station's 4:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts.

Yu's rapid ascent at Channel 5 from General Assignment Reporter to co-anchor took only one year. Besides reporting and anchoring, Linda's duties at Channel 5 included hosting two documentaries, which focused on her homeland of China, and contributing to innumerable special news reports.

Yu has won three Emmy awards: one in 1981 for a special broadcast she delivered on the assassination attempt of former President Ronald Reagan. Another Emmy honored her presentation of a Loop construction accident.

Born in Xian ( pronounced "Shee-On" ) China, Yu's roots in broadcast journalism can be traced to her early assignments as a news anchor and reporter at KATU in Portland, Ore., and tenures with two Los Angeles stations: KTLA-TV and KABC-TV, the ABC-owned station in Los Angeles. From 1976-'79, Yu was hired by KGO-TV, the San Francisco ABC affiliate.

Other honors include a 1987 Emmy for "Outstanding Achievement within a Regularly Scheduled News Program, Spot Coverage." This story was on the fall flooding of that year. 1984 found Yu honored with The National Conference of Christians and Jews National Gold Medal for her documentary, The Scars of Belfast.

Yu's philanthropic bent can easily be seen throughout her career as evidenced by her continuing support of numerous charitable causes and humanitarian projects. She proudly chairs the Annual March of Dimes Mother's March and serves on the Board of the Juvenile Protective Association. Linda is also the co-founder of the Chicago Chapter of The Asian-American Journalists' Association and also serves as an Advisory Board Chairperson for the Chinese American Service League.

Yu emigrated to the U.S. at age 5, having lived in Hong Kong from age 2. Today Linda co-anchors the 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. newscasts on ABC 7 Chicago, sharing the afternoon anchoring duties with another Chicago broadcast legend, Joel Daly. Yu currently resides in the city with her son and daughter. Her office, laced with photographs of her beautiful children, provided the backdrop for our interview in early May.

DAVID GUARINO: You were born in Xian, China, Linda, is that correct?

LY: It was the old Imperial Capital. Do you know The Terra Cotta Warriors? That's where they found them. They were unearthed there, and the reason why is because Xian is the Imperial Capital. So the emperors way back when were all there and that's why that particular emperor had built that army and buried it there around himself. That was his burial place, and so they now know that there are other burial grounds out there as well.

DG: How long has it been since you've been back there, Linda?

LY: Oh, let's see. I probably haven't been back there since 1982. A long time.

DG: Do you miss it?

LY: Well, I don't remember it enough to be able to say I would like to get back again. I've taken my son back to China, but I haven't taken my daughter. And I would love to do that. Just to see where their mom was born and that half of their heritage.

DG: While you were at Station KGO in San Francisco, you did a story on uninsured motorists that prompted the enactment of legislation to protect residents from drivers who drive without insurance.

LY: You know it was amazing. It was a topic that somebody had suggested to me. I brought it up and I got to do the piece. And I was just stunned at the letters, bags full of mail that we got. And I started carting these bags of mail to Sacramento ( capital of California ) . And the lobbies for the insurance companies were so strong that they'd never been able to get any legislation out of committee. And so we were able to do that, just because people were so interested. You hope sometimes that you can do some good in the reports that you do. So, yeah, that was an exciting story.

DG: You have two beautiful children, Linda. Is it scary raising children in this era of rave parties, circuit parties, drugs and violence in schools?

LY: You know I think every parent worries about that David. You worry about so many things suddenly once you have children. Right? I mean, you don't think about a lot of these things until you have children and then you worry about absolutely everything. You know what's important and what I think I've learned, knock on wood, is that I hope to continue to have a great relationship with my children. From the time they were teeny-tiny, we talked about everything. The kids would know that they would be able to say to me, "Mommy, can we have a chat?" Because I would start with them, "Can I have a chat?" And that was the signal to drop everything and be face-to-face. And be able to really talk. So when they were little, a chat might just be, "I love you," or they'd have a question about something. But to this day we do that and so there will be topics maybe, you know I have a son, who maybe doesn't want to talk about a lot of things with his mother. And we just plow ahead anyway. And he feels comfortable after a while. Because we've always communicated; we've always talked. And so it's one of the things that I'm so happy about. He talks to me a lot. I hope that means some of these things every parent fears won't be a problem because the children feel free to come and ask. Feel free to come if they get information from friends that may not be true; they'll come for real information. And then maybe avoid some of the worse problems, I hope! You know you have to do that with your kids and not just have your door open but you have to be in their faces and never be afraid to talk about sensitive subjects with them.

DG: Your award-winning documentary on The Scars of Belfast sounds fascinating.

LY: Oh, it was heart-rending. I'd done some stories about children who were brought over here from Belfast. And they were such wonderful children. And in the course of doing the stories, you know it just breaks your heart. To hear an eight-year-old say to you, in a very matter-of-fact way, "Well, I was walking with my best friend and I heard shots and my best friend was dead." And this is an eight-year-old child. And this is something that is just part of their everyday life. They've never known anything else. And we have children like that all over the world. We have children in our own cities who have experienced things like that. The reasons are different. For these children it was the troubles in Belfast. I just wanted to do the pieces on them and just look at them from a child's point of view. For children to have never known any kind of peace. And so I went to do it ( to Europe ) . Came back and did five parts on it and got such a response. This was at MAQ.

So the general manager did something phenomenal. He said, "Turn this into a one-hour documentary." And my producer and I said, "Well that's fine but it's going to be hard to break it up with commercials and that sort of thing." And he said, "Do it without commercials." ( Linda laughs ) That was a long time ago! But it was fabulous and we got an incredible response from that, it was just so emotional to look at it from a child's viewpoint.

DG: You're the Cofounder of the Chicago Chapter of The Asian American Journalists' Association?

LY: Right. The two Asian groups that I probably do the most for would be The Asian American Journalists' Association and The Chinese American Service League, which is the only full-service community group in Chinatown. And for me it clearly is because coming here to Chicago when I did, there had never been an Asian on one of the network-owned stations, you know, in a regular position. And the response that I got from people was, "Oh my God, there's one!" You know, there's one here. So I became someone that the Chinese and the Japanese and the Koreans and the Indians, virtually any Asian looked to, because they never saw anyone like them on the air here. And so, that's very important to me. The Chinese American Service League is very important to me because these immigrants were me. And we came with nothing. And here and there were people who would help us. And it made our life; it made all of the difference in our lives when sometimes there would be someone who would help us. And for an immigrant, I mean, it's such a struggle when you start. You don't speak the language, you don't know anyone, you don't know how to go about anything. And so, to me it was important to be able to help these two groups.

DG: When I interviewed Warner Saunders back in January, he mentioned you as one of the people who literally took him by the hand when he was starting out as a news reporter at NBC. ( Linda chuckles ) Can you share memories of working with him?

LY: Oh that's so sweet of him. Warner's a good guy. You know in some ways it was intimidating when he came over ( from Channel 2 ) . Warner had such an incredible reputation in Chicago. From the programs he had done, like Common Ground. He had such a foundation of love from people in this community because of those programs. And Warner as you know is gigantic. He is so tall. So it was doubly intimidating when he would come walking toward little short me. But what a fabulous, warm wonderful man. If he felt that his skills were as an interviewer, it took a whole different set of skills to sit at an anchor desk and put a story together. ... It's a whole different skill to put it together for us in a TV piece that runs a minute 30 ( seconds ) as opposed to a talk show. So if he had trepidation about that, I mean he didn't show it. He was just so professional about it and he just was in there plugging away. ... I found him just to be such a wonderful, warm kind of person and working so hard to learn this new aspect of television. And he was just fabulous.

DG: Having spent a great deal of time on the West Coast as an anchor and reporter, what do you think are the primary differences in what audiences in different parts of the country look for in a newscast? Is it different from place to place?

LY: Totally! Absolutely. Even when I first came here, Chicago had the reputation of being a fabulous news town for reporters to work in. And what I sensed immediately when I got here was that I loved the audiences here because they call you on everything that you say and everything you do. They pay attention. In California it's more the news just sort of goes by, and if it was interesting to you or something caught your eye or your ear you might pay attention to it and go, "Oh, OK." And as a reporter or an anchor out there you might get a letter once in a while asking for more information or questioning something. In Chicago when I first came ( here ) , the phone would ring after I did a piece, and someone would yell "Well, what do you mean by so and so? Don't you know that in my ward, blah, blah, blah, blah!" Or, "How dare you say that? Do you know the history of so and so?" That was one of the important things, when I first came here I went and got ( Mike ) Royko's books. I tried to read up on the history of Chicago. Because I understood instantly that this audience here cared very much what you said.

DG: Could you share a few of your fondest memories of your stay with NBC 5 ( WMAQ-TV ) and one of the most valuable lessons you learned?

LY: The first time I was on the air at MAQ, the phones were ringing off the hook after I ended my part. Because people didn't know, they hadn't seen another Asian face. They wanted to know where I was from. It just gave me a whole different feel for Chicago. What I point to there was, I started there as a weekend anchor. In six months they had moved me to weekdays to anchor the 4:30. Six months after that I was anchoring the ten. Which says an awful lot about the audience. The people here were so accepting, and I've loved them ever since for that. So it was from day one where I got a really good lesson about the curiosity of Chicagoans and their penchant for calling you on things.

DG: For you, Linda, what is the secret to staying a key player in the wildcard industry of TV Broadcast Journalism?

LY: It still comes back to the people, David. It means that these people have stayed loyal. Maybe what they're getting is that I care about them. And if you don't really care I think the audience knows that because you're there every single day in their home. You can't fake that. If you don't care, they sense that and they stop watching. You need to give them information but you need to care about what's important to them and pay attention.

DG: Recently Barbara Walters did a 20/20 interview special in which she profiled same-sex parents and their children to find out what their day-to-day lives were like. Is the concept of same-sex parenting either by adoption or when one partner is a natural parent a viable concept? Also, what are the possible obstacles to success in this regard?

LY: How can you deny that it's a viable concept when it exists in so many places? And it's not just a matter of it's in San Francisco or it's in New York or it's in Chicago and just in the big cities. It exists. It's a part of our world and I think not just in the United States. Maybe in the United States we talk a little more openly about it. I think that in Sweden they probably talk much more openly about it. What we need to realize, and I think that we begin to with programs like that ( The Barbara Walters' Special ) is that there are so many ways that we are families. And the important thing is not what's different about how to be a family, but what's important is how to make our families strong. Whatever kind of family you have. And you know that I have these very strong feelings about children and children's welfare.

What's important is not who your parents are but that they are good parents. That's the important thing. So is it viable? Well, of course it is because it exists! I think it's a given. Obstacles? Yes, there are obstacles, unfortunately to anything that is different from another person's reality because there are still persons who have prejudices. As an Asian woman, I come from that understanding that being gay is just part of who some people are. I'm Chinese and that's just part of who I am. What I would hope is that everyone would have that understanding. You would hope that everyone, at least, could have an open mind about it. We know that that's not true and we're a long, long way from that.

...............

I mentioned to Linda that my Mom is a big fan of hers and watches her newscast almost every day. She autographed a photo for my Mom and told me she would make a signal with her pen to my mother during the next day's newscast that would be her way of saying, "Hi, Rose," in the same manner that Carol Burnett used to say hello to her grandmother in code by pulling on the lobe of her ear. My Mom, who suffered a serious stroke four years ago, was thrilled. Sometimes the smallest acts of kindness leave the greatest impressions. It is a concept that Linda Yu clearly understands.

E-mail: DavdRonald@aol.com