Brian Rooney is a 35-year veteran of print and television news. He was a correspondent for ABC News based in Los Angeles for 23 years. Rooney has also worked for CBS News, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera America, and for the investigative magazine show SoCal Connected on public television in Los Angeles. In the past 25 years he covered many of the biggest stories in the West, including the Yellowstone fires, the Loma Prieta Earthquake, the Los Angeles Riots, and the OJ Simpson murders. He also covered the John Kerry presidential campaign. In 2005 he was one of the official witnesses to the execution of notorious Los Angeles gang member and murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams.

Overseas he was in China during the Tien An Men crisis and covered the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Phuket, Thailand and Banda Aceh, Indonesia. He was in Tel Aviv under missile attack by Saddam Hussein and covered the 1991 Persian Gulf War from Israel, Kuwait and southern Iraq. In 2004 he was back in Iraq to cover the worst of the car bombings and civilian massacres during the insurgency.

He likes to get away from the pack. “When I’m where everyone else is, I’m in the wrong place,” he says. To prove it, Rooney climbed a 180-foot redwood tree to interview the tree sitter Julia “Butterfly” Hill. It took him two hours.

As a contributor to ABC News’ Nightline, Rooney profiled Hollywood figures including Angelina Jolie, Sopranos creator David Chase, Rainn Wilson of NBC’s The Office, and Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs.

Before working in television, Rooney spent five years as a newspaper reporter. He wrote about murders and the Mafia in Rochester, NY. His reporting in Providence, RI was instrumental in opening the criminal investigation and resulting indictment of then Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., who later pleaded guilty and left office.

Rooney has won four Emmy awards and two Edward R. Murrow awards for excellence.

__________________________

Original Art by Gladys Contreras  gladysicontreras@gmail.com