Singer Rosemary Clooney's younger brother is going to anchor the news at KSTU-Ch. 13 beginning at the end of the year.
Veteran television newsman Nick Clooney will be behind the desk when Ch. 13 starts up its nightly news operation on Dec. 31, KSTU programming director Christy Elswood has confirmed.(Ch. 13 plans to begin a nightly 9 p.m. newscast on that date.)
He's coming to Utah from Cincinnati, where he's been a fixture in local television for years. He's currently working as a commentator for station WKRC.
This isn't the first time that KSTU news director Dick Tuininga has sought Clooney's services. When Tuininga was news director at a Pittsburgh station in 1989-90, he unsuccessfully tried to lure Clooney there.
The 48-year-old Clooney has worked as a broadcast journalist for all three network affiliates in Cincinnati. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he anchored the top-rated newscast in that Ohio city.
In 1984, Clooney left for Los Angeles, where he anchored the news at KNBC for two years. But in 1986, it was back to Cincinnati and WKRC.
(Exactly why he left L.A. was never publicized, although the NBC-owned station apparently released him from a multi-year contract - but that could have been at Clooney's request.)
The anchorman's subsequent stint in WKRC wasn't as successful. The newscast was first in the ratings in May of 1986, but it had fallen to second by May of '87 and third by July of that year. Clooney resigned the following January.
But he returned shortly thereafter as a commentator - sort of like John Chancellor on the NBC Nightly News - and has held that position at WKRC since 1988. He also writes a newspaper column.
Ch. 13 was looking for an air of of maturity and credibility when it begins its newscast, and according to observers in Cincinnati they just may have found it in Clooney.THE BABY: A 1953 wire story in the DesNews files about Rosemary Clooney and her singing sister, Betty, also mentions Nick.
The Clooney sisters "refer to 10-year-old Nick Clooney, `the baby,' who is just starting his singing career. He also writes songs, the first to be released on a record by big-sister Rosemary. It's titled `It Just Happened To Happen To Me.' "
In the future, I promise to avoid referring to Clooney as "the baby."FAMOUS SON: Not only does Nick Clooney have a famous sister, but he's also got a famous son.
He's the father of actor George, who's starred in a number of television shows, including "The Facts of Life," "E.R.," "Roseanne" (he played Roseanne's boss in that series' first season) and, most recently, he was in last year's version of "Baby Talk."OTHER HIRES: Clooney isn't the only broadcast journalist Tuininga has hired from back East.
Husband-and-wife team Don Dunwell and Marianne Herman will be coming to Salt Lake City from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, respectively. He's a reporter, she's a weekend anchor.
(And this marks the third time Tuininga has hired Dunwell - each time for a different station, of course.)
And KSTU has hired a local person, Chad Booth, as its weatherman. Booth was once a reporter for a station in Scranton, Penn., but he gave that up to become sort of an independent entrepreneur. (Among his ventures - he produced the local boat show a few weeks ago). This will be Booth's first experience as a weatherman.