Bob Simon Dies at 73
At the age of 73, “60 Minutes” news correspondent Bob Simon died on Wednesday night in a car accident in New York City.
Simon was unconscious with head and torso injuries when the officers arrived to the Lincoln Town Car that he was sitting in, according to the New York Police Department. The vehicle had collided with another vehicle at a red light around 30th street on the West Side Highway in Manhattan. He was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after.
Anderson Cooper of CNN, someone who worked alongside Simon on “60 Minutes,” said that “Bob was, and I’ll tell you it’s very hard to talk about him in the past tense, but Bob was for the last five decades, simply one of the best, in my opinion…at getting a story, telling a story, writing a story and making it simply unforgettable.”
Bob Simon became a part of CBS in 1967 and “60 Minutes” in 1996.
Covering over fifty years of news, the award-winning reporter has earned 27 Emmys, four Peabodys, the Overseas Press Club’s highest honor, and has covered notable events such as the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, in which he spent 40 days in an Iraqi jail after being arrested.
Jeff Fager, “60 Minutes” Executive Producer, said that “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.” He adds that “There is no one else like Bob Simon. All of us at CBS News and particularly at 60 Minutes will miss him very much.”
