I don’t know how many people are actually nerdy enough to have ever watched an episode of “60 Minutes” on CBS, but if you did I’m sure you probably got a lot of information on current news topics that you may not previously had heard of or particularly cared for. If you were tough enough to stick it out or lucky enough while channel-surfing, you might catch the segment in which Andy Rooney did his bit—part comedy and part philosophy. You might just have heard something that made you think.
Although, at times, Rooney made inappropriate or insensitive comments, for which he had to later apologize, for the most part he was an honest journalist. He made us question ourselves and the world around us.
As a fledging journalist, I have tried to bring some of Andy Rooney’s flair to my particular reporting style—his style of sarcasm and humor, which have given such a rare insight into understanding the issues that are important and how we as Americans feel about those issues. Rooney asked us to question whether or not the ideas we held about our freedoms were real or only illusory.
I don’t think that even a bitter bastard like Rooney, at 92 years old, could complain that he didn’t get enough time. His career in journalism spanned over six decades, and he left a legacy of broadcast commentaries, essays and news writings that have been experienced by generations of American people.
In his career, Andy Rooney saw war, disease, and poverty, each with a delicate mix of social awareness and comedic detachment.
However, Rooney has not always been the one telling the jokes; he has also been the subject of several impersonations, and to borrow a phrase from Coco Chanel, “imitation is the highest form of flattery.”