Random Thoughts

CBS News said tonight that the longtime news correspondent was killed in a car accident in NYC. Bob Simon was 73. The crash occurred on the West Side Highway in Manhattan when the Lincoln Town Car in which Simon was traveling hit another vehicle and went off the road. He had been preparing a 60 Minutes report on the ebola virus and the quest for a cure for this Sunday’s broadcast. He was working with his daughter, Tanya, a producer for the newsmagazine with whom he collaborated on several stories for the program.

In a five-decade career, much of its as foreign correspondent, Simon won 27 Emmys, four Peabodys and numerous other awards. He joined 60 Minutes in 1996 and also did more than 200 pieces for its spinoff 60 Minutes II.

“We’re obviously all in shock,” 60 Minutes executive editor Bill Owens told Deadline on Wedneday night. “It’s a tremendous loss. Bob Simon covered some of the most difficult stories that any reporter has covered over the last 50 years. He was one of the last American reporters on the choppers out of Vietnam. During the first Iraq War, he was held hostage. Bob was always considered the Dean of the Middle East correspondents for the CBS Evening News.”


Simon also was one of the first CBS News veterans invited by the show’s late creator, Don Hewitt, to join the 60 Minutes team. “Don was selfish that way,” Owens said. “He was interested in talent and insisted on having only only the best people working at 60 Minutes. And Bob Simon was one of the great writers in any medium in journalism. I can’t tell you how many times [60 Minutes executive editor] Jeff Fager and I looked at one another and said, ‘Only Bob Simon can cover this story.'”

CBS interrupted its programming tonight just minutes after the CBS Evening News had wrapped on the East Coast. “We have some sad news tonight from within our CBS News Family,” a very red-eyed Scott Pelley said. “Our 60 Minutes colleague Bob Simon was killed this evening. It was a car accident in New York City.” The special report lasted about two minutes, noting Simon’s achievements and offering condolences to his family.

“Bob was a reporter’s reporter,” 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager said in a statement. “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.”

Said CBS News President David Rhodes: “Bob Simon was a giant of broadcast journalism and a dear friend to everyone in the CBS News family. We are all shocked by this tragic, sudden loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with Bob’s extended family and especially with our colleague Tanya Simon.”

Born on May 29, 1941, in the Bronx, Simon joined CBS News in 1967 as a reporter and assignment editor based in New York. He covered campus unrest and inner-city riots, as well as the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. During the late ’60s he reported extensively on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He later reported on the Vietnam War while based in London and Saigon bureaus.

“It was television coverage that made it impossible for the Americans to stay in Vietnam,” he said in a 2013 interview with the Archive of American Television. “I mean, the fact that the people in Tahrir Square could be watching the revolution in Indonesia, and then their own revolution on Al-Jazeera … this has become a crucial part of world politics. It is determining fates as much as anything else. Important things that happen like the Arab Spring wouldn’t have happened without television.”

Simon covered 35 overseas conflicts and he nearly paid the ultimate price many times.  In addition to several short detentions, wounds and other close calls, he was imprisoned by Iraqi forces for nearly seven weeks during the opening days of the Gulf War in 1991. Simon also reported from war zones in Portugal, Cyprus, the Falklands, Yugoslavia and from the American interventions in Grenada, Somalia and Haiti. He was in Poland during martial law, with Israeli troops during the Yom Kippur War, with PLO fighters during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and in Gaza the day the First Palestinian Intifada began.


Reporting from Israel in 1978, Simon learned of Golda Meir’s death before even Prime Minister Menachem Begin had been told. He reported the news on CBS Radio immediately and asked Begin, who had just finished a speech, what he thought of her passing. The PM was unaware.

Simon served as an NYC-based national correspondent for CBS News from 1982-87 and was its State Department reporter from 1981-82, based in D.C.. Before that, he was assigned for the first time to CBS News’ Tel Aviv bureau (1977-81). He was named CBS News’ chief Middle Eastern correspondent in 1987 and reported from the Tel Aviv bureau for more than  20 years. He received a Peabody and two Emmys for his coverage of the 1996 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.


Simon also contributed to CBS’ Olympics coverage. For the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, he chronicled the botched attempt of the Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence agency, to avenge the deaths of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The coverage earned him an Emmy Award. For the broadcast of the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, he delivered a 30-minute piece on Louis Zamperini, the subject of Angelina Jolie’s biopic Unbroken, who went from Olympic runner to World War II airman. After his plane went down over the Pacific, Zamperini survived for weeks on a raft before being taken prisoner by the Japanese and surviving a terrible POW camp. The story won a Sports Emmy for Simon.

In 1999, he was singled out by TV’s oldest and most prestigious awards to receive a rare personal honor for his body of international reporting. The citation from the Peabody Awards Committee read, in part: “In an age when neophytes with cell phones, websites and mini-cams claim to be journalists and when the debate on critical global issues often takes on a shrill tone amplified by thousands of extremist voices, Bob Simon’s reports for 60 Minutes II and 60 Minutes ring with reason, truth and informed insight.” His other accolades include electronic journalism’s highest honor, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, considered a broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, and his final honor, the Special President’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Overseas Press Club. He received that group’s highest honor last year.

In addition to his daughter, Simon is survived by his wife, Françoise; son-in-law Evan Garfein; and grandson Jack.

joey con carne wrote:War zones and the like, with bullets flying all around him, bombs exploding.... and then he passes away due to a vehicular collision.

All true, but look at this collision....they had to cut the roof off to even get him out.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Damn it! Bought a ticket for the $500 Mil Powerball.....no dice! Got the first digit which was 11 and 2 that were off by one.

One day...

WyldeMan wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:Damn it! Bought a ticket for the $500 Mil Powerball.....no dice! Got the first digit which was 11 and 2 that were off by one.

One day...

I have never bought a Lotto ticket.

WyldeMan wrote:The only gambling I do is with cards or women.

WyldeMan wrote:Why must talented celebrities keep fucking up their lives doing dumb shit....Emile Hirsch was just charged with felony assault and is facing five years in prison for choking a female Paramount exec at Sundance.

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:The only gambling I do is with cards or women.

Oh....that's good! That's movie line good! Did you make that up? That's signature material.

WyldeMan wrote:[center]

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:[center]

Thanks for posting that! I've heard the song a lot of times but didn't know who sang it.

WyldeMan wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:[center]

Thanks for posting that! I've heard the song a lot of times but didn't know who sang it.

Really? I don't ever hear it anywhere but on my iPod.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Yeah, it's poped up occasionally on TV shows. Not on the radio though.

Rusty Cunt wrote:So, I watch a few of shows as I download them week to week, on my Macbook. It's cool, but it's small. I need to use headphones, and it's slightly to the right of my chair, so my neck is always at a slight turn. I watch my TV and use my computer from the same chair (recliner).

Anyhoo ... Today, I noticed a flap on the edge my Blu-Ray player, popped it open, and low & behold, a USB port. Hahaha. 12 months of ownership, and I just now only realise it has a connection for USB. So I've spent the day watching recently downloaded  shows and films via a USB stick on my TV, starting with the latest Banshee. Much more enjoyable.

Awesome! Haha

GrooThePerverted wrote:HA! this is fantastic!

WyldeMan wrote:

GrooThePerverted wrote:HA! this is fantastic!

That was the bit he did at his show I went to 2 years back that I was talking about, that did not go over well in the casino crowd, but i was laughing my ass off.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Snowing like a bitch in the tristate. Will be hitting 10 inches tonight. My car battery couldn't take it, it gave up on me. Had it tested at AutoZone and it's dead so I had to get a new one. Thanks a lot snow!

WyldeMan wrote:They sold you a new battery because of one failure to start on a very cold morning? Abe tell me you had it bench tested and not with a hand held outside hooked up to the car?

WyldeMan wrote:Oh yeah that sounds right then, I thought you meant off of only one failed start they sold you. Five years is pretty much the standard life of a battery these days but most of the garbage Johnson Controls batteries that half this country sells lasts 2-3 years if you're lucky. I never stopped warrantying batteries when I was still with O'Reilly. I probably wrote over 400 warranties on batteries alone in my time there.

Since school was closed had you not started your car for four days prior? On a five year battery on real cold snap could have caused the plates to fuse together which would create dead cells in the battery. Happens all the time and during the cold is the when you'll see it the most. The reason I asked about if it was only checked with a handheld, is most parts stores will check your battery with those and tell you its bad but I couldn't tell you how many times that handheld read dead and the bench tester showed otherwise. Also the handhelds will not read properly if its below 40 degrees. So those throw false reads all the time. Just wanted to make sure they properly tested it.

UltimateMarvel wrote:It's a 97 Camry. I remember having it checked a while ago and it said low oxygen....fuel.....I forget exactly. Haven't bothered with it since then. Now my car has fixed ITSELF!

Rusty Cunt wrote:Chances are it was a fault with the oxygen sensor (which measures the air/fuel ratio). Common fault on every car that has one.

Rusty Cunt wrote:No it hasn't

Chances are it was a fault with the oxygen sensor (which measures the air/fuel ratio). Common fault on every car that has one.

WyldeMan wrote:

Rusty Cunt wrote:Chances are it was a fault with the oxygen sensor (which measures the air/fuel ratio). Common fault on every car that has one.

Yup, it's a code I would pull probably five times a day. Seems like every car on the road these days with more than 50k miles on em always has a bad O2. It can cause stalling and fuck up your gas mileage but they're easy to fix and for a Camry you're probably looking at about $30. They take about five minutes to change and all you need is a wrench. You pop the hood and the manifold is right in your face, real quick easy fix.

UltimateMarvel wrote: If I can do it myself I'll do it when the warm whether kicks in.

GrooThePerverted wrote:HA! this is fantastic!