Award-winning CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon was killed Wednesday night in a car crash in New York City, the network announced. He was 73.
Simon was riding in a livery cab on the West Side Highway in Manhattan when the cab rear-ended another vehicle and hit the median, according to the New York Police Department. Simon later died at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, while the cab driver was transported to another hospital with injuries to his arms and legs.
“It’s a terrible loss for all of us at CBS News,” “60 Minutes” Executive Producer Jeff Fager said in a statement. “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.”
Simon joined CBS News in 1967 and much of his time with the network reporting from war zones, including Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. He and three other colleagues were imprisoned and tortured by the Iraqi army in 1991, and Simon later wrote a book called “Forty Days” about the ordeal.
Over the course of his five-decade career, Simon also won four Peabody awards and 27 Emmys — the most ever earned for a field reporter, according to a CBS obituary.
Simon is survived by his wife and his daughter, Tanya, who is a producer with “60 Minutes.” The two were collaborating on a story about the search for a cure for the Ebola virus for Sunday’s broadcast, according to CBS.
Watch CBS anchor Scott Pelley break the emotional news in a special report below:
This post has been updated.
Bob Simon was an actual reporter, not a pretty face reading press releases. He will be missed.
On top of all his career work in the field, he made a nice appearance in Bill Moyers “Buying the War” on PBS (free viewing on line). One of your top mainstream reporters and a fine journalist. That part of the West Side Highway can be dangerous, people always rushing to catch the next light since they are not sequenced, cab driver likely screwed up here. Shame.
That’s terrible news. Mr. Simon always seemed like a truth-teller and a decent person. Condolences to his family and friends.
Wow! Four more Peabody’s than O’Reilly! Quite the body of work.
Rest in peace, Mr. Simon. Unlike so many of today’s journalists who think it isn’t their job to correct lies, you were a credit to your profession.