Getty Images
- Legendary War Reporter Bob Simon Dies In A Fatal Car Accident
Bob Simon, “60 Minutes” correspondent and the CBS news anchor with a five decade long career tragically passed away due to a car accident in New York last night.
Last night Bob Simon the award winning reporter and anchor of the long time running CBS’s ’60 minutes’ passed away. The correspondent was 73 years old and died unexpectedly in a car crash, while in New York.
Jeffrey Fager, Chairman of CBS News and Executive Producer of “60 Minutes”, issues following statement on Bob Simon’s death.
“It’s 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. 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.”
Bob was a reporter’s reporter…driven by a natural curiosity. We will miss him very much.— Jeff Fager (@JeffFager) February 12, 2015
CBS News Anchor and Managing Editor, Scott Pelley, also tweeted about Simon’s death. See his tweet below.
One of the great writers of a generation has passed. Bob Simon was a journalist of extraordinary courage.— Scott Pelley (@ScottPelley) February 12, 2015
Bob Simon was born in 1941 and grew up in his native Bronx, New York. Simon in 1962 Simon graduated in history from the Brandeis University with a Phi Beta Kappa distinction. Simon then went on to serve as an American Foreign Service Officer from 1964 to 1967. Afterwards he pursued journalism that spanned into a glorious 5 decades long career.
Bob Simon’s real passion was journalism and he is lauded as a reporter’s reporter because he had a drive for stories that took him all around the world. In 1967 Simon joined CBS News in New York as a reporter and assignment editor. Then from 1977 to 1981 Simon worked as a network’s State Department correspondent in Washington D.C.
“[Bob Simon] was brave — he would go places where you probably shouldn’t have gone” http://t.co/9gwHCum2vg pic.twitter.com/kV9ucOwNcw— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 12, 2015
Simon’s real forte lies in War reporting. It began from Vietnam, from 1971-1972 he remained in Saigon and reported on the particulars of war, especially his coverage of the 1972 Hanoi spring offensive landed him an Overseas Press Club award for best coverage on radio during the conclusion of the conflict. In 1975 he was abroad one of the last helicopters out of Saigon and reported the events.
In America, he’s Bob Simon. In Israel, he was simply “Bub.” Life as a foreign correspondent: http://t.co/S4QWrGByEE pic.twitter.com/wqlPShl3Pj— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 12, 2015
Similarly Simon went on to report upon the violence’s in numerous war zones such as Northern Ireland, the war in Portugal, the Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Falkland Islands, Somalia , Haiti and Grenada. In 1987 Simon became the primary broadcast journalist in the Middle East and worked in Tel Aviv for more than 20 years and was named CBS’s Chief Middle Correspondent.
Simon went on to win the OPC award, the Peabody Award and two Emmy awards. Due to Simon’s reporting of the war in Sarajevo in 1966 CBS News received an RTNDA Overall Excellence in Television Award. Simon also covered the Olympics in 1972, 1994 and 1998. His piece on Louis Zamperini in 1998 Olympics at Nagano, Japan won him a sports Emmy award.
Simon latest piece aired last week on ’60 Minutes’ where he interview Ava DuVernay the director of the Oscar nominated film ‘Selma’.
60 Minutes mourns the loss of correspondent Bob Simon, who died tonight at age 73: http://t.co/tJK0uRpLTR pic.twitter.com/A5KlkyAW9X— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 12, 2015