Morley Safer, who formally retired a week ago as a correspondent of CBS' TV news magazine 60 Minutes, died Thursday, the network confirmed. He was 84.
Safer was the longest-serving correspondent of the venerable news program. He filed his last report in March, and CBS formally announced his retirement May 11.
In his 46 years on the venerable program, he filed more than 900 reports. His last story was a profile of Danish Architect Bjarke Ingels. The network ran an hour-long program celebrating his career — “Morley Safer: A Reporter’s Life” — after Sunday’s regular edition of 60 Minutes.
Shortly after the broadcast Sunday, Safer tweeted: "It’s been a wonderful run, and I want to thank the millions of people who have been loyal to our @60Minutes broadcast. Thank you!"
It’s been a wonderful run, and I want to thank the millions of people who have been loyal to our @60Minutes broadcast. Thank you!
— Morley Safer (@SaferCBS) May 15, 2016
Safer received numerous awards for his work, including 12 Emmys, three Overseas Press Club Awards, three Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, two George Polk Memorial Awards and the Paul White Award from the Radio/Television News Directors Association.
Born in Toronto, Safer, like many broadcasters of his generation, began his career as a print journalist, working for newspapers and wire services in Canada and England before joining Canadian Broadcasting Corp. At Canada's largest broadcasting entity, he toured Europe, North Africa and the Middle East on assignments, including the war for Algerian independence. He was the only Western correspondent in East Berlin the night the Communists began building the Berlin Wall in August 1961, according to his bio on CBS' website.
He started at CBS in 1964, working as a correspondent in the London bureau. He turned his attention to Asia a year later to open a Saigon bureau as the Vietnam War raged on. In 1967, he returned to London as CBS News’ bureau chief there, but continued to visit Vietnam to cover the war. Safer wrote about his experience in Vietnam in a book released in 1990, "Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam."
