Harold Dow dies at 62; decorated CBS newsman helped shape ’48 Hours’

Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent Harold Dow, who helped shape the documentary program “48 Hours” and covered the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the 9/11 attacks, has died. He was 62.

Dow died unexpectedly Saturday morning in New Jersey, network spokeswoman Louise Bashi said. He lived in Hackensack, but it wasn’t immediately clear if he’d been at home.

Dow had been a correspondent for “48 Hours” since 1990. His 40 years with the network and its affiliates also included reporting for “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather” and CBS News’ “Sunday Morning.”

A “48 Hours” report on runaways earned him a George Foster Peabody Award. He also won five Emmys, for work including coverage of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and of American troops’ movement into Bosnia in 1996.

“Insatiably curious, he was happiest when he was on the road deep into a story,” Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of “48 Hours Mystery,” said in a statement. “It was his humanity, which was felt by everyone he encountered, even in his toughest interviews, that truly defined the greatness of his work. He was the most selfless man I have known.”

Dow landed an exclusive interview with kidnapping victim Hearst in December 1976, and he had the first network interview with O.J. Simpson after the 1994 killing of his ex-wife. He barely escaped one of the falling twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the network said.

Dow was a contributor to “48 Hours on Crack Street,” the 1986 documentary that led to the creation of the weekly “48 Hours.” Before that, he had been a co-anchor on CBS News’ “Nightwatch” and a correspondent and reporter at the CBS News Los Angeles bureau. He started his career with the network as a broadcast associate in 1972.

As a co-anchor and talk-show host for KETV in Omaha, he was the first African American television reporter in that city.

He is survived by his wife, Kathy, and their three children.

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