ROONEY TO HONOR CBS PICKET LINE

Andy Rooney, the resident humorist of CBS’ “60 Minutes” for 8 1/2 years, said Thursday he won’t be on the high-rated program Sunday because of the strike by staff news writers against CBS and ABC.

“I’ll still be working, but I won’t cross the picket line,” said Rooney, who earlier this week briefly joined the picket line of the striking Writers Guild of America outside the CBS Broadcast Center here.

Rooney’s decision made him the first of the network’s correspondents to refuse to cross the guild picket line for an on-air appearance. His intention had been rumored within CBS News for several days.

There is always the possibility that the strike or the picketing might end before Sunday. However, Don Hewitt, executive producer of “60 Minutes,” said Thursday that the question was academic because he wasn’t planning to use Rooney anyway this week.

That, Hewitt said, was because Sunday’s first story “is too long and they haven’t got room for him.” He said all the other regulars on the program would appear.

Rooney is a former Writers Guild member. However, the union to which he now belongs, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, is not on strike. The federation represents on-air correspondents at the networks.

Rooney’s decision to honor the guild picket line came a day after he, CBS anchor Dan Rather, ABC anchor Peter Jennings and nearly 100 other colleagues signed an open letter accusing CBS and ABC management of forcing the strike, which began on Monday.

Spokesmen for the networks have said they would not comment on the letter.

Rooney, 65, whose journalism career goes back to World War II service as a combat correspondent for Stars & Stripes, also said he was saddened by news of a $30-million budget cut at CBS News that will result in at least 200 layoffs.

But he seemed more resigned about that than he was last August, when, in his syndicated newspaper column, he publicly criticized earlier layoffs at CBS News and the decision of Van Gordon Sauter, then the division’s president, to ax the 23-year-old “CBS Morning News” in its current form at year’s end.

CBS, “which used to stand for the Columbia Broadcasting System, no longer stands for anything,” Rooney wrote then. “They’re just corporate initials now.”

On Thursday, however, after taking a mild swipe at the new, cost-cutting management now running CBS Inc., Rooney said that network news will never be the same again in the new era of bottom-line emphasis.

“We’ve had a charmed life,” he said. “Why network news ever was preserved in the great shape it was for so long I’ll never know, considering all the junk the networks peddle in the rest of their time.”

He added, “It’s been wonderful, better than wonderful, and the American public doesn’t know how lucky it’s been. . . . I don’t think they’re going to have it the same way (it is now) for long.”