New York Daily News – by ROCCO PARASCANDOLA, JOSEPH STEPANSKY, BILL HUTCHINSON, DENIS SLATTERY
60 Minutes” reporter Bob Simon, a survivor of numerous close calls as a war correspondent, was killed Wednesday in a horrific car crash on the West Side Highway.
The 73-year-old CBS veteran, who won 27 Emmy Awards in a career spanning five decades, had to be cut from a mangled livery cab that rear-ended a Mercedes-Benz and slammed into a concrete median near W. 30th St.
Simon was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital following the 6:45 p.m. smashup, but doctors could not save his life.
“We have some sad news tonight from within our CBS News Family,” a red-eyed Scott Pelley said as the network interrupted its programming after the CBS Evening News. “Our ‘60 Minutes’ colleague Bob Simon was killed this evening. It was a car accident in New York City.”
The veteran newsman was riding in the back of a Lincoln Town Car, headed south on the West Side Highway, when his driver plowed into the Mercedes, which was being driven by a 23-year-old man, a police source said. The collision sent the Town Car careening into the center divider, trapping Simon inside the car, the source said.
Emergency responders used hydraulic tools to cut the top off the car and extricate Simon, who was unconscious and had injuries to his head and torso, and the driver.
The 44-year-old driver was taken to Bellevue Hospital in serious condition and an investigation is ongoing, police said.
“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,” said Jeff Fager, executive producer of “60 Minutes.”
“Bob was a reporter’s reporter,” Fager said.
Simon, an Upper West Side resident who covered nearly 40 overseas conflicts, had been a regularly contributing reporter for “60 Minutes” since 1996 and served as the show’s senior foreign correspondent.
He was born in the Bronx in 1941 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a history degree from Brandeis University in 1962. He first worked for CBS News as a reporter and assignment editor in 1967.
Simon, who won more than 40 major awards, was honored with a Peabody Award in 2000 for “a body of work by an outstanding international journalist on a diverse set of critical global issues.” He was given a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003.
CBS News noted that Simon suffered “several short detentions, close calls and wounds” — and, most notably, capture by Iraqi forces in the desert near the Kuwaiti border during the opening days of the Gulf War in January 1991.
Simon, who was tortured and beaten by his captors for being Jewish, penned a book, “Forty Days,” about his detention.
“If I said, ‘You know what, Bob. I have a really good story and it’s halfway around the world, he’d be on his way before he knew what it was about,” Fager said.
His last piece, airing Sunday, will be a bittersweet tribute. Simon and his daughter, Tanya, a “60 Minutes” producer, collaborated on Ebola and the quest for a cure.
Simon is survived by his wife, Françoise, and daughter.
Simon’s death triggered an outpouring of condolences from his colleagues in the news industry, as well as from fans.
“Completely heartbroken by the news of ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent and legend Bob Simon dying in car accident on the West Side. I’m in shock,” City Councilman Corey Johnson tweeted after the tragic accident.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper tweeted that Simon “was the best writer, in my opinion, working in broadcast news. I have admired him from the time I was a kid watching” CBS news.
NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell tweeted, calling Simon an “eloquent, fabled war corespondent.”
With Laura Bult, Don Kaplan
That car “plowed” into a pole, not a mercedes.
“The driver struck a black 2003 Mercedes Benz that was stopped at a red light at 30th Street, and then struck the stanchions that separate northbound and southbound traffic on the highway, police said.”
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/02/11/bob-simon-60-minutes-correspondent-and-cbs-news-veteran-dies-in-west-side-highway-crash/
Maybe he misremembered his time as a hostage? can’t have too many tall tales exposed all at once.
All media deaths are questionable since Michael Hastings and Gary Webb.
Another one removed from the planet, one less media whore.
I’m glad he’s dead. Just another lying Zionist piece of trash that we’re better off without. I hope he died slowly.
Brian Williams and his SHOCKING confession and now this supposed TRAGEDY along with Whitney’s daughters ACCIDENT/SUICIDE then Bruce Jenner’s ACCIDENT then Kim Karnastians ONE REGRET and on and on it goes until you feel like your heads going to explode!
That car is ruined. Just how fast is the speed limit on this West Side Highway?
Not surprised accident on West Side Hwy…when I used to live in NYC I sometimes had to use the WSH which was quicker than Broadway or 7th avenue or whatever…have not used it in 30 years plus but in those days the West Side Hwy was COBBLESTONES! Imagine driving 60mph on cobblestones? Either surface, the Westside Hwy is an accident waiting to happen…
And for the most part only whistleblowers and real journalists get whacked…Bob Simon was okay compared to other MSM liars, but still, he was no journalist!
The speed limit on the West Side Hwy. is suppose to be 50 mph (45 mph Mid and Downtown Manhattan. Stop lights are also more frequent in that stretch of the Hwy.). However, that depends on time of day and congestion. Generally, you had better be in the slow lane if you are only going 50 mph as people (esp. cops) will fly right by you.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/speed-factor-bob-simon-livery-cab-crash-cops-article-1.2112327
There’s been too many deaths of “convenience” lately to brush this off, not that Bob Simon was a truth-telling journalist. Any untimely high profile death must be scrutinized. By the way, any word on the Michael Hasting murder? I’ve heard nothing. Another voice successfully silenced.
I haven’t heard or seen anything about Michael Hastings since last summer.
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/02/12/cbs-bob-simon-remembered-as-master-storyteller/21142247/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing10%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D612406
“A story he was working on … about searching for an Ebola cure….”
Maybe he learned that the Liberia and Sierra Leone versions of ebola can be cured with decontamination of water from the formaldehyde dumped in it. Hence, a remote-controlled crash.
Anything’s possible Enbe. Bob Simon was not one to delve into controversial topics other than a conspiracy in the “bingo” game at the “Shady Thicket Rest Home.”
Well, 27 Emmys makes for a lot of bingo games, lol.
Yes Enbe, he sure had that smooth talking voice, one that could convince an Eskimo to buy a freezer. He’s the guy who’ll tell you to put some more sprinkles on that dog turd and say scrumpdillyishious!
Another one bites the dust: David Carr, Times Critic and Champion of Media, Dies at 58
“Mr. Carr collapsed in The Times newsroom, where he was found shortly before 9 p.m. He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/business/media/david-carr-media-equation-columnist-for-the-times-is-dead-at-58.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=1
Yup. Another one bites the dust…
(I sent that one in for posting, earlier tonight, as soon as I saw it. It will probably get posted in the morning. 😉 )
And ANOTHER ONE bites the dust, by Chris Ariens, from TVNewser (http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/former-nbc-news-correspondent-ned-colt-has-died/255847):
“Ned Colt, an [sic] former NBC News foreign correspondent, has died. On ‘NBC Nightly News’ tonight, Lester Holt reported that Colt ‘covered the world for NBC News for more than a decade starting in the mid-90s.’ In 2004, Colt and his NBC News crew were kidnapped and held for three days in Iraq.
“After leaving NBC, Colt worked for humanitarian organizations, first for the International Rescue Committee as a manager for the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. More recently he’d been working for the United Nations on the refugee crisis.
“Colt died after suffering a major stroke at his home in Boston. He was 58.”
Yes, another one…
Seems a little strange, doesn’t it.
Wow!
Looks like ‘newscasters’ are catching the bankster ‘bug’.
Except that it’s ‘accidents’, rather than ‘suicides’.
One “accident” and two suddenly dropped dead…
Rather strange, I would say. Makes me wonder…
New ‘epidemic’.
Politicians are ‘vaccinated’, of course.
Yes, they are vaccinated for Speak the Truth Disease. Everyone else, who even alludes to the Truth, must be eliminated.
That, ‘suicides’ AND ‘accidents’.
That’s why they don’t need Obummerdoesn’tCare.
And another crash, from TVNewser.com, by Mark Joyella (http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/former-nbc-newser-bob-hager-unhurt-after-head-on-crash/255845):
“Longtime NBC News correspondent Bob Hager was involved in a head-on collision near his home in Vermont Thursday. Hager was uninjured; his wife, Honore, was hospitalized with back and neck injuries. According to a report by local station WCAX, Hager and his wife were traveling on Route 11 in Peru, Vermont, when another car crossed the center line and hit Hager’s car head-on.
“Hager, best known for his coverage of aviation, retired from NBC in 2004 after 35 years and settled in his native Woodstock, Vermont.”
The count so far:
Brian Williams
Jon Stuart Leibowitz
Bob Simon
Ned Colt
Bob Hager