Emily Rooney is an American journalist, TV talk show and radio host and former news producer. She is currently host of the weekly program Beat the Press on WGBH-TV. From 1997 to 2014, she was also the host and executive editor of Greater Boston, which was also later rebroadcast on the Boston-based WGBH radio station. She also hosted the Emily Rooney Show on WGBH radio. WGBH announced on May 29, 2014 that Emily Rooney would be stepping down from her host position on the Greater Boston TV show, which she created, to become a special correspondent for the program. Rooney had been with the program since 1997. Her final Greater Boston show as its host was Thursday, December 18, 2014, after 18 years.
Career
Before coming to WGBH, Rooney was director of political coverage and special events at Fox Network in New York from 1994 to 1997. Before that, for about one year, she was executive producer of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, ABC's nightly news program. She also worked at WCVB-TV in Boston from 1979 to 1993, where she served as news director for three years and as assistant news director before that. In the mid-to-late 1970s, Rooney also worked at the CBS affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut, WFSB, as an assignment editor, among other positions at the station.
Personal life
Emily Rooney is the daughter of noted CBS 60 Minutes correspondent and humorist Andy Rooney. She has an identical twin sister, Martha, who is Chief of the Public Services Division at the United States National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. Her brother Brian Rooney was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years. Rooney has one daughter, Alexis. Rooney's husband, WCVB-TV reporter Kirby Perkins, died suddenly of heart failure July 1997. Rooney lived in the metro west suburb of Newton for many years and now resides in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood.
Emily Rooney has been awarded the National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism, a series of New England Emmy Awards, and Associated Press recognition for Best News/Talk Show. Rooney's WGBH news program, Greater Boston, has received two Regional Edward R. Murrow broadcast journalism awards and five New England Emmy awards. Rooney has also received a New England Emmy in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Commentary/Editorial.
