Bob Simon - P 2015
AP Images/InvisionVeteran 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon died Wednesday in a car crash in Manhattan, CBS announced. He was 73.
During a career spanning five decades, Simon won 27 Emmys for covering major stories including The Vietnam War, violence in Northern Ireland from 1969-1971, The Gulf War and The Olympics. In 1991, spent 40 days in an Iraqi prison alongside three other members of the CBS News team, and turned the experience into the 1992 book Forty Days.
“Bob Simon was a giant of broadcast journalism, and a dear friend to everyone in the CBS News family. We are all shocked by this tragic, sudden loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with Bob’s extended family and especially with our colleague Tanya Simon,” said CBS News President David Rhodes.
Related Stories
See more Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2014
60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager called it “a terrible loss for all of us at CBS News.”
“It is such a tragedy made worse because we lost him in a car accident, a man who has escaped more difficult situations than almost any journalist in modern times,” said Fager. “Bob was a reporter’s reporter. He was driven by a natural curiosity that took him all over the world covering every kind of story imaginable. There is no one else like Bob Simon. All of us at CBS News and particularly at 60 Minutes will miss him very much.”
Read more ’60 Minutes’ Bob Simon Dies: Celebrities React on Twitter
Simon was born May 29, 1941, in the Bronx. He joined CBS News in 1967 as a New York-based reporter and assignment editor. Simon began regularly contributing to 60 Minutes in 1996, with the 2014-2015 season marking his 19th on the show. 60 Minutes aired a piece from him on Selma over the weekend.
He is survived by his wife, Francoise, and daughter, Tanya, a producer for 60 Minutes.
