ABC NEWS STAFF SUFFERING THROUGH CUTBACKS

Former ABC News correspondent Brian Rooney, who was recently fired after 22 years with the network, has told Daily Variety that the mood at the news division is “dark” as the network retrenches with wholesale layoffs. “Friends are disappearing and few people know whether they will have a job or what their job might be at the end of this. Just as an observer, aside from my personal interest, I have never seen a corporate reorganization as drastic and immediate as this,” Rooney told the trade publication. As for himself, he said that once rumors began spreading that ABC News was cutting 25 percent of its employees, he knew he was especially vulnerable since his contract was about to expire. “So when they told me, I took it like a man, although in private moments I have not.” But if 22 years at the same network seems like a lot, consider the fact that Rooney’s father, Andy Rooney, the 60 Minutes essayist, joined CBS in 1949 as a writer for Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, the American Idol of its day.