CBS reported after 11 p.m. last night that Bob Simon, 60 Minutes correspondent and CBS News foreign reporter died suddenly Wednesday night in a car accident in New York City.
According to a report by the network, Simon was riding in the backseat of a livery cab around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday on New York City's West Side Highway when the car rear-ended another vehicle and crashed into barriers separating north- and southbound traffic, the New York Police Department said in a statement. Simon's last conducted an interview for 60 Minutes last weekend with Ava DuVernay, the director of the Academy Award-nominated film Selma. He was working on a story for Sunday's broadcast with his daughter, Tanya, a 60 Minutes producer, about the Ebola virus and the search for a cure.
Simon, winner of 27 Emmys and four Peabody Awards, was born on May 29, 1941, in the Bronx, N.Y. A Phi Beta graduate Kappa from Brandeis University in 1962, he earned a degree in history and served as an American Foreign Service officer (1964-67). He worked on the front lines on all the wars since Vietnam, reported the Beatles break-up and was imprisoned and tortured by the Iraqi army with three CBS News colleagues in 1991, during the early days of the Persian Gulf War. He wrote about the ordeal in his book, Forty Days.
Simon earned respect for his exacting, penetrative interviews, "An equal opportunity offender" in pointing out injustices everywhere — according to fellow anchor Scott Pelley — Simon continued to uphold professionalism in today's frenetic, get-the-story-out-first, 24-hour news cycle.
A sad coda to a week of tumultuous events in the news media, news of Simon's death follows NBC news anchor Brian Williams fudging the facts, and his 6-month suspension, and Comedy Central pundit Jon Stewart announcing his departure from The Daily Show.
Simon is survived by wife, Françoise, and their daughter, Tanya, her husband, Dr. Evan Garfein, and his 3-year-old grandson Jack — whom Simon called the joy of his life, declaring him as proof that there is a perfect child in this world.
The network released this retrospective video about a truly remarkable journalist.
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2015.