Bob CollinsBob Simon, the giant of a reporter at CBS News, survived war coverage since Vietnam. But it was a town car in Manhattan that killed him last night,you’ve probably heard.
A lot of people in the business have their favorite stories that he covered.
Here are a few of mine.
The island nation that was disappearing into the sea.
The orchestra in Paraguay, that was put together from trash. He won his 27th Emmy for this story, which is believed to be the most Emmy Awards for field reporting ever handed out.
In the Congo in 2012, he found an all-black symphony orchestra. For this piece, he won a Peabody. His fourth.
When we in the United States saw what unimaginable genocide looked like for the first time, it was Simon who told the story in “Shame of Srebrenica,” which detailed the murder of 8,000 Muslims. For this, he won a DuPont Award for brilliant interviewing.
War, genocide, the arts…. to soccer. That’s a fair degree of range for a reporter.
In describing Spain’s soccer program for kids, Simon called it “more seminary than summer camp.” A lot of reporters would kill to write like that.
Oh, and there’s the polar bears.
