This is by no means a complete list of Simon’s best work at “60 Minutes.” It also doesn’t take into account the 30 years of work he did with CBS News, before joining the newsmagazine. Rather, this is a list of some of the more recent, memorable, and wonderfully-told stories — and back-stories — by a man whom Scott Pelley called, “one of the great writers of a generation.”
- In a 2012 report on Christians in the Holy Land, he called out Israel’s ambassador to the U.S, who assumed Simon would be working on a “hatchet job.”
- There was the story earlier this season, profiling Mandy Patinkin, on the set of “Homeland” in South Africa.
- There was that time Simon took one for the team: stung by a bee reporting from the beleaguered city of Detroit.
- There was the time he spent two years trying to meet the monks of Mt. Athos. The result was a stunning 2-part story that aired on Easter Sunday 2011.
- And the perks of the job: 4 years ago, while profiling wildlife filmmaker John Downer, Simon imbibed with a 20-year-old scotch, from a piece of a 2,000-year-old glacier.
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