Bob Simon Net Worth

What was Bob Simon's net worth and salary?

Bob Simon was an American television journalist, foreign correspondent, and longtime CBS News reporter who had a net worth of $8 millin. Bob Simon was best known for his work on "60 Minutes." Over a career that stretched nearly five decades, Simon became one of the most respected broadcast journalists of his generation, covering wars, revolutions, political upheaval, international crises, and human-interest stories from nearly every corner of the world. He reported from Vietnam, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Grenada, Somalia, Haiti, and Iraq, building a reputation for fearless field reporting and vivid storytelling. Simon spent most of his professional life at CBS News, where he joined in the late 1960s and eventually became a fixture on "60 Minutes." His work earned him 27 Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, and a lifetime achievement Emmy. He was also widely remembered for surviving 40 days in Iraqi captivity during the Persian Gulf War, an ordeal he later chronicled in his memoir "40 Days." Simon died in 2015 after a car crash in Manhattan.

Early Life

Robert David Simon was born on May 29, 1941, in the Bronx, New York. He attended Brandeis University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1962 with a degree in history. Before entering journalism, Simon built an unusually international résumé. He was a Fulbright scholar in France, a Woodrow Wilson scholar, and worked as a Foreign Service officer from 1964 to 1967.

That early diplomatic and academic background helped shape the perspective that later made him such an effective foreign correspondent. Simon was not simply a reporter dropped into war zones; he had a deep interest in history, culture, geopolitics, and the human consequences of international conflict.

CBS News Career

Simon joined CBS News in 1967 as a reporter and assignment editor in New York. His earliest assignments included coverage of campus unrest, urban riots, and the 1968 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. He soon gravitated toward international reporting, particularly war coverage, and found the role that would define much of his career.

During the Vietnam War, Simon was based in Saigon and London, reporting on one of the most consequential conflicts of the 20th century. In 1975, he left Saigon on one of the last American helicopters out of the city, a dramatic exit that placed him at the center of one of the defining images of the war's final chapter.

After Vietnam, Simon continued reporting from conflict zones and politically volatile regions. He covered violence in Northern Ireland, unrest in Portugal, and American military actions in Grenada, Somalia, and Haiti. He was posted to CBS's Tel Aviv bureau from 1977 to 1981, then moved to Washington, where he served as the network's State Department correspondent from 1981 to 1982. He later returned to New York as a national correspondent before going back overseas as CBS's chief Middle East correspondent in 1987.

Persian Gulf War Captivity

One of the most famous and harrowing chapters of Simon's career came in January 1991, during the opening days of the Persian Gulf War. While reporting near the Saudi-Kuwait border, Simon and several CBS colleagues were captured by Iraqi forces. They were held for 40 days.

Simon later wrote about the experience in his 1992 memoir "40 Days." The book recounted the fear, uncertainty, interrogation, and psychological strain of captivity, but it also reflected the same observational style that made his reporting so distinctive. The experience became a central part of his public identity, not because it defined his entire career, but because it underscored the risks he routinely took in pursuit of frontline journalism.

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"60 Minutes"

Simon became closely associated with "60 Minutes," one of the most prestigious news programs in television history. He joined the program as a correspondent and became a full-time contributor in 2005. By the time of his death, he was in his 19th season with the broadcast.

On "60 Minutes," Simon's range expanded beyond war and foreign affairs. He reported on politics, art, culture, science, sports, and ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. His later pieces included an Emmy-winning story about an orchestra in Paraguay whose young musicians played instruments made from recycled trash. His final "60 Minutes" contribution was an interview with Ava DuVernay, the director of "Selma," which aired shortly before his death.

Awards and Honors

Across his career, Simon won 27 Emmy Awards and four Peabody Awards. In 2000, he received a Peabody for his body of work as an international journalist covering major global issues. In 2003, he received an Emmy for lifetime achievement.

Those honors reflected not just longevity, but consistency. Simon was admired for his ability to report from dangerous places without reducing complex stories to simple drama. He combined a war correspondent's nerve with a writer's eye for detail, and his work helped define the CBS News tradition of serious international reporting.

Personal Life and Death

Simon was married to Françoise Simon. They had one daughter, Tanya Simon, who also worked in television journalism and became a producer for "60 Minutes."

Bob Simon died on February 11, 2015, after a livery cab crash in Manhattan. He was 73. According to police reports at the time, Simon was a passenger in a cab that sideswiped another vehicle near West 30th Street and 12th Avenue before crashing into a median. He was taken to Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The crash was a shocking end for a journalist who had survived decades of dangerous assignments, including war zones, revolutions, and captivity.

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