Prior to the NYPD, O'Looney was an Emmy-nominated television reporter who worked for CBS News, WCBS TV, and New York 1 News. He also worked at CNBC and the Financial News Network. O'Looney began his broadcast career in at WIBX News in his native, Utica, New York. On September 11, 2001, O’Looney was part of the WCBS TV anchor team that broadcast news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In October 2001, he was the first reporter to gain entry to the apartment in Hamburg, Germany that terrorist Mohammed Atta used to plot the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In December 2001, O'Looney was the first Western reporter to get an exclusive interview with Yasser Arafat following the PLO Chairman's speech renouncing suicide bombings. The interview took place in the courtyard of Arafat's shelled headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.