Journalists around the world paid tribute to 60 Minutes journalist Bob Simon last night, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Simon, who had worked at CBS for nearly five decades, died Wednesday in a car crash. He was 73.
Cooper occasionally worked on 60 Minutes, so he did have meet Simon. While he admitted that he was not close friends with him, Cooper recalled seeing him in the 60 Minutes offices.
“He was just a lovely guy,” Cooper said. “The producers who worked with him loved working with him, and you can’t say that about everyone in this business.”
He later continued, “When Bob Simon presented a story on 60 Minutes, you knew it was going to be something special, no matter what it was.”
Simon died in a car accident in Manhattan. CBS News later confirmed his death, with 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager calling him a “reporter’s reporter.”
“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,” Fager noted. “All of us at CBS News and particularly at 60 Minutes will miss him very much.”
Simon’s final piece for 60 Minutes was on Ava DuVernay and her film Selma.
Here is Simon’s story on Selma:
image courtesy of Walter McBride/INFphoto.com