Brian Rooney (journalist)

Brian Rooney (born November 4, 1951) is a writer and former American newspaper and television reporter. He was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years and now publishes a six-day-a-week report, The Rooney Report.

Early Life and Education:

Brian Rooney was born in Greenwich, Ct., the son of the 60 Minutes commentator Andrew Aitken Rooney (Jan. 14, 1919 – Nov. 4, 2011) and Marguerite Howard Rooney (Apr. 3, 1920-Apr. 27, 2004). Rooney was raised in the town of Rowayton on Long Island Sound.

Rooney graduated from The Loomis School, Windsor, Ct. in 1970; Colgate University with a BA in English, 1974; and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, MSJ 1975.

His journalism career began in college where he was Executive Editor of The Colgate Maroon newspaper in the company of what became several distinguished journalists, including Gloria Borger of US News and CNN, Steve Lohr of the New York Times, and Michael Hiltzik who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize with the Los Angeles Times.

Rooney was also a versatile athlete, playing varsity football, hockey and lacrosse in high school. He played freshman hockey at Colgate and four years of varsity lacrosse, elected co-captain both his junior and senior years.

Career

Brian Rooney was a correspondent for ABC News based in Los Angeles for 22 years until he was fired in the midst of buyouts and layoffs in the spring of 2010 that reduced the ABC News workforce by as much as 20 percent in an effort to turn to more “digital” journalism. He told The New York Times, “I hope they succeed, although I like to think they will have a harder time doing it without me.”

In his years with ABC Rooney covered many of the biggest stories in the West including the Yellowstone fires, 1988; the Loma Prieta Earthquake, San Francisco, 1989; the Los Angeles Riots, 1991; OJ Simpson murders, 1994; and the sudden death of entertainer Michael Jackson in 2009.

Rooney also travelled to cover the Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004; the insurgency in Baghdad, Iraq, 2004; the John Kerry presidential campaign, 2004; the Persian Gulf War, 1990-91; and the 1989 Tien An Men crisis in China.

Between breaking news assignments Rooney occupied his time with less weighty subjects such as the auto shop sculptures known as “muffler men”, the high-tech $100 yo-yo, toy pianos, and the 100-year-old light bulb that still burns.

Rooney began his career at The Princeton Packet newspaper in Princeton, N.J., where he covered sports and education.

Starting in 1977 he spent four years at the Democrat & Chronicle, the morning newspaper in Rochester, NY, where among other assignments he covered federal courts and organized crime which at the time was engaged in bloody internal warfare for control of the local rackets.

In 1981 he left newspapers to become a television reporter for WOKR-TV (ABC) in Rochester, now WHAM.

Rooney worked in Rochester television only seven months before he was hired away to WPRI-TV (ABC) in Providence, R.I. There his reporting was instrumental into the opening of a criminal investigation and resulting indictment of then Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., who later pleaded guilty and left office.

Rooney also covered the 1983 America’s Cup sailing races off Newport, RI, which ended with the Australians winning the cup away from American control for the first time in the 132 year history of the event. Rooney won a Boston regional Emmy Award for a half-hour documentary he wrote and produced on the America’s Cup.

In 1984 Rooney moved to WBBM-TV (CBS) in Chicago where he shared an Emmy Award for coverage of the sudden death of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in 1987.

He went to work for ABC News in the Los Angeles bureau in January 1988.

Family Life

Rooney is married to the writer and former actress Cecile Callan. They have two daughters, Emma and Katharine.

Rooney’s sister Emily Rooney is the former host of the daily public affairs program Greater Boston and the news critique program Beat the Press on WGBH television, His sister, Martha Fishel, was Chief of the Public Services Division at the National Library of Medicine, and sister Ellen is a travel and garden photographer living in London.