Bloggers Remember Rooney

The death of a 92-year-old journalist--whose curmudgeonly commentary was part of the longest-running prime time TV news magazine--prompted wide-ranging tributes on blogs last week. For the week of November 7-11, the No. 1 story on blogs was the November 4 death of venerable commentator Andy Rooney, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Rooney's popular essays capped CBS's 60 Minutes broadcasts for more than 30 years. He was a writer even before the age of television as a correspondent for The Stars and Stripes during World War II, and he had worked at CBS for more than 60 years. His first on-air essay debuted July 2, 1978 after he had served as a producer and narrator for a series of broadcasts on CBS. And by his final send-off on October 2, 2011, Americans knew him as the bushy-browed and somewhat cantankerous observer of American life. Despite Rooney's status as an old-school newsman, bloggers revered him for bringing a distinct new mode of communication to the news.