simonbobNEW YORK (AP) – His fellow broadcast journalists are mourning the death of longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon, who was killed in a car crash last night in New York City. He was 73.
 
     CNN anchor Anderson Cooper — who does occasional stories for the CBS program — says when Simon presented a story, “you knew it was going to be something special.” Cooper says he still hopes to be “a quarter of the writer” that Simon was.
 
     CBS News President David Rhodes calls Simon “a giant of broadcast journalism.”
 
     Steve Kroft, another “60 Minutes” correspondent, says Simon was a “gutsy reporter” and a “true gentleman” who “knew the Middle East as well as any reporter.”
 
     Simon’s career in war reporting began in Vietnam. At the start of the Gulf War in 1991, Simon was captured by Iraqi forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. CBS said he and three other members of CBS News’ coverage team spent 40 days in Iraqi prisons.
 
     In recent days, he’d been preparing a report on the Ebola virus and the search for a cure for this Sunday’s “60 Minutes” broadcast.
 
     Police continue to investigate the accident involving a Lincoln TownCar in which Simon was a passenger.