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MIDTOWN — Legendary broadcast journalist Morley Safer has died, an executive producer with "60 Minutes" said Thursday.
Safer, 84, passed away about a week after announcing his retirement from the influential news program he worked on for 46 years, "60 Minutes" reported.
The broadcast journalist reported on U.S. Army abuses in Vietnam and interviewed celebrities like Dolly Parton and Katharine Hepburn.
"He simply had this ability to take it to the next level," his longtime producer David Browning told "60 Minutes."
"There's an old saying of Mark Twain's that the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. And that's what Morley did. He was lightning."