Obits

Joe Paterno, the legendary coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, who lost his job over the Jerry Sandusky scandal in November, died this morning after a short battle with lung cancer. Paterno, 85, is being memorialized with flowers and candles at his statue on the campus of Penn State, as shown during live reports on ESPN and CNN.

Fox News was first to report the news at 10:19amET, ESPN about a minute later, MSNBC at 10:22 and the NFL Network at 10:34.

CNN sent a breaking news alert earlier, but the cable channel did not report the news until 10:34, when Candy Crowley interrupted “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” At 11am, Howard Kurtz‘s “Reliable Sources” reported the news with Susan Candiotti reporting from campus in State College.

On his show this morning, Kurtz also fessed up to sending a Tweet last night after a report that Paterno had died. “I didn’t check it. I said it was sad news. I should have been more careful. Lesson learned.” As Poynter reveals, the erroneous report, picked up by several news organizations, stemmed from a Tweet sent by Onward State, a student-run website.

Richard Threlkeld, who spent 25 years as an anchor and correspondent at CBS News, was killed this morning in a head-on car crash on Montauk highway in Amagansett, New York.

Threlkeld worked for local TV stations WHAS in Louisville and WMT-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa before joining CBS News in 1966 where he would remain until 1981. Threlkeld served as co-anchor of the CBS Morning News with Lesley Stahl from 1977 to 1979. In 1982 Threlkeld joined ABC News, reporting for “World News Tonight.” He returned to CBS in 1989 where he stayed another 10 years.

During his news career, Threlkeld covered the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and the Tiananmen Square protests. His last assignment for CBS News was as Moscow correspondent. His wife, Betsy Aaron was CNN’s Moscow correspondent at the time. Richard Threlkeld was 74.

Here’s a Threlkeld report from Nov. 1995 on “CBS Sunday Morning.”

> More: Statement from CBS News colleague Lesley Stahl: “Richard Threlkeld had the kind of name and kind of looks that could’ve made him a reporter in the movies, but unlike a reporter in the movies, he could write his owns scripts. In fact, he was one of our best writers and reporters, someone CBS sent to troubled spots to cover the big stories of the day. Richard was known for his integrity and his decency.”

Read more

Friends and colleagues from across the TV spectrum joined Andy Rooney‘s four children this morning at Rose Hall, bidding farewell to the CBS News essayist, who died November 4 following complications from minor surgery.

Rooney’s son Brian Rooney, a longtime correspondent at ABC News, hosted the memorial service which included remarks from Andy Rooney’s three daughters, Ellen Rooney, Emily Rooney and Martha Fishel and Rooney’s girlfriend of 7 years, former “Today” show “girl” Beryl Pfizer, who had known Rooney since 1950. Rooney’s grandchildren were there, including Justin Fishel Pentagon producer for Fox News Channel.

Brian Rooney talked about how, over the past several weeks he’s gone through his father’s belongings and found everything from a $6,000 uncashed check from CBS, to a diary entry dated March 8, 1941: “Went to Gallagher’s. Don’t get chicken at a steakhouse.”

“What you saw, was the same show that we had at dinnertime,” said Rooney.

CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” EP Jeff Fager as well as Rooney’s “60″ family: Morley Safer, Steve Kroft and Scott Pelley all spoke at the service.

Safer talked of Rooney’s “rich, eccentric legacy.” A man who filled American homes “like a piece of the Sunday furniture, like a portrait on the wall, like the TV itself.”

Safer then introduced a video which included outtakes of his interview with Rooney conducted last Spring. Showing a picture of the early correspondents: Harry Reasoner, Mike Wallace and Diane Sawyer, Rooney stopped at Sawyer — who was not able to attend. “She’s the prettiest girl I

Read more

Conservative political pundit Tony Blankley, who was a speechwriter for Pres. Regan, the editorial page editor of The Washington Times, and a regular on the weekly public affairs show “McLaughlin Group” died Sunday morning. Blankley, 63, died of stomach cancer.

During a career that spanned politics and the media, Blankley was press secretary to House Speaker Newt Gingrich from 1990 to 1997. Gingrich remembered Blankley on the campaign trail Sunday in New Hampshire.

Blankley would go on to be a syndicated newspaper columnist and an political commentator for CNN, NBC, and NPR.

Stan Case, an anchor for CNN Radio, was killed in a head-on car crash in Birmingham, Alabama Tuesday during a driving rainstorm. Case’s wife, Angela Stiepel Case, who is a writer for CNN Newsroom in Atlanta, was injured and remains in the hospital.

Case, based in Atlanta, joined CNN in 1985 after working as a correspondent for KEBC-AM in Oklahoma City. He was “in many ways the backbone of this network,” said Mike Jones, a CNN Radio news manager.

Adds Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide: “He was a fine journalist, a leader in our organization and, as anyone who had the privilege of knowing him will tell you, a great guy.”

Birmingham police do not have details on the crash, but are investigating.

Longtime CBS News executive Lane Venardos was fondly remembered Wednesday in a moving service at the Paley Center in New York City.

Venardos who died August 19 at his home in Maui, spent 30 years at CBS News producing live news, special events and documentaries. He would go on to produce the “Survivor” live finales for Mark Burnett on CBS.

More than 200 luminaries from across the television industry attended the memorial, including CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, News president David Rhodes; Charles Osgood, Scott Pelley, Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl, and Rita Braver; current “CBS Evening News” EP Pat Shevlin, CBS News VP Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews (who currently has the job Venardos once held) and “Sunday Morning” EP Rand Morrison.

Also Diane Sawyer, now with ABC News, who worked with Venardos during her time at CBS and from NBC: Brian Williams, News president Steve Capus and former CBSer, now EP of “Rock Center” Rome Hartman, were there, as was former CBS News president Andrew Heyward. ABC’s “This Week” EP Rick Kaplan, and former “GMA” boss Jim Murphy, both former CBS Newsers, attended.

Former CBS News and CBS, Inc. president Howard Stringer, who worked closely with Venardos during his years at CBS and who is now CEO of Sony, spoke via video. Other speakers included Pelley, Stahl, Williams and Venardos’s daughter Kelly who is a producer for “NBC Nightly News.” CBS News “48 Hours” EP Susan Zirinsky presented a video tribute (after the jump). The service concluded with a vocal solo performed by Venardos’s son, Kevin.

Read more

• Well this is sad. TMZ reports that the college roommate of CBS News commentator Andy Rooney passed away at a memorial service for the TV personality. The man supposedly had a heart attack during a trip to the bathroom at the Century Club, and was declared dead on the scene.

> Update: Now TMZ reports the roommate, Bob Ruthman was revived and is in the ICU at a local hospital. TMZ pins the false information on Rooney’s son ABC News correspondent Brian Rooney.

Hal Bruno, who was ABC News political director for much of the 1980s and 90s, died yesterday after a fall at his home in Maryland. He was 83.

Bruno spent 21 years with ABC News, retiring in 1999. He had better sources than anyone in the business, according to ABC News Washington Bureau Chief Robin Sproul, who, as a radio producer, worked with Bruno on the show “Hal Bruno’s Washington.”

“The number of county party chairman he knew across the country was mind-blowing,” Sproul tells ABCNews.com. “On election night he could call any one of them. They all knew him and they were all trying to get information to him and from him.”

A native of Chicago, Bruno joined ABC News in 1978. Before that, he spent 18 years at “Newsweek,” as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, news editor and chief political correspondent.

Bruno is survived by wife Margaret, two sons and four grandchildren.

Veteran “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney was surrounded by family when he died last night in a New York City hospital at age 92, according to one of his daughters.

“He was conscious almost until the end,” Emily Rooney, a producer and host at Boston’s WGBH, tells TVNewser. “He knew we were there. He let us know that.”

Mr. Rooney died from complications following minor surgery on Oct. 18, Emily said. Though declining to offer details, she said her father had undergone the procedure before.

“It was not a big deal, but it ended up being a big thing,” she said. “It was a total surprise to us that things didn’t work out.”

Also surprising was the extent of TV coverage today of her father’s passing, she said. “I flipped on the news this morning and it was everywhere. There was an odd, satisfying solace in that.

“People got my dad. They knew who he was. He wasn’t some crank who went on “60 Minutes” once a week. He was ‘every man.’”

A noted World War II correspondent, Mr. Rooney joined CBS in 1949 as a writer for “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” His “60″ commentaries, A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney, ran from 1978 until his final regular appearance, on October 2. It was his 1,097th commentary.

The family will hold a private funeral service this week, with a CBS memorial at a later date, Emily said. Mr. Rooney will be buried in the family plot in Rensselaerville, N.Y., near his native Albany. Marguerite ‘Margie’ Rooney, his wife of 62 years, is also buried there.

The family has requested that all donations be sent to the Andrew A. Rooney Scholarship Fund at Colgate University, his 1942 alma mater. The address: 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, N.Y. 13346.

Legendary CBS News commentator Andy Rooney, whose weekly “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” commentaries on “60 Minutes” made him a welcome guest in millions of people’s homes across the country, died last night in the hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery.

Born January 14, 1919 in Albany New York, Rooney began his journalism career in the U.S. Army, where he wrote for the Stars & Stripes newspaper during World War II. He would join CBS in 1949 as a writer for a number of entertainment programs, including “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” He wrote his first essay–a precursor to the sorts of essays he would write for “60 Minutes”–in 1964.

Rooney partnered with CBS correspondent Harry Reasoner to write and produce a number of commentaries from 1964-1968, and served as a producer on the first few seasons of “60 Minutes.” His “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” segment became a regular feature  in 1978, and it remained a staple of the program until ending it in September.

Rooney has written a regular newspaper column for Tribune starting in 1979, and has also written 16 books. He received a lifetime achievement Emmy Ward from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2003.

In his final regular “60 Minutes” appearance, Rooney reflected on his career, and as he so often did in his commentaries, he explained his thoughts in a straightforward, concise manner.

“I’ve done a lot of complaining here, but of all the things I’ve complained about, I can’t complain about my life,” Rooney said.