NEW YORK — Morley Safer, the veteran 60 Minutes correspondent who was equally at home reporting on social injustices, the Orient Express and abstract art, and who exposed a military atrocity in Vietnam that played an early role in changing Americans' view of the war, died Thursday, according to Kevin Tedesco, a CBS News publicist.
No further details on his death were immediately available.
Safer, who once claimed "there is no such thing as the common man; if there were, there would be no need for journalists," was 84. 60 Minutes aired a tribute to Safer on Sunday after he announced his retirement earlier this month.
In 1970, Safer joined 60 Minutes. The show was just 2 years old and not yet the national institution it would become. He claimed the co-host chair alongside Mike Wallace.
During the next four decades, his rich voice delivered stories that ranged from art, music and popular culture, to "gotcha" investigations, to one of his favorite pieces, which, in 1983, resulted in the release from prison of Lenell Geter, an engineer wrongly convicted of a $50 holdup at a fast-food restaurant who had been sentenced to a life term.
He is survived by his wife, the former Jane Fearer, and his daughter, Sarah.