Bob Simon, 60 Minutes Correspondent, Killed In Car Crash

The news community is mourning the death of one of its own. Bob Simon, a longtime correspondent for CBS and its 60 Minutes news program, was killed in a car accident in Manhattan Wednesday evening. He was 73 years old. The New York Times reports that Simon was a backseat passenger in a livery cab which struck a Mercedes-Benz sedan at a red light before crashing into metal stanchions situated in the median of the road. Simon was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital, while his driver was treated with injuries to him legs and arms. Police confirmed to the Times that the driver of the Mercedes-Benz was not injured. The accident is under criminal investigation. Tributes have been pouring in since news of Simon's death broke. As Us Weekly notes, fellow journalists like Katie Couric, Dan Rather, Maria Shriver, Anderson Cooper, and Larry King have all paid tribute to the reporter, who was in his 19th season as a 60 Minutes correspondent.  Simon, who is survived by his wife and daughter, won 27 Emmy Awards and four Peabody Awards in his distinguished career. As a war correspondent covering the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he was help captive for 40 days by Iraqi forces, an experience he later chronicled in a memoir (40 Days) published the following year. His most recent piece, an interview with Selma director Ava DuVernay, aired over the weekend, the Times reports.  “It’s a terrible loss for all of us at CBS News,” Jeff Fager, executive producer of 60 Minutes, said in a statement published in the Times. “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,” Fager added. “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.”   Our thoughts are with Simon's family and his colleagues at CBS News.