The veteran CBS News correspondent died Saturday. He was 62.Dow leaves behind a wife, Kathy, and three children, Danica, Joelle, and David.
His career at CBS spanned almost 40 years. A five-time Emmy winner and a correspondent for 48 Hours since the program’s inception, Dow covered everything from the kidnapping of Patty Hearst to American involvement in Bosnia.
When 48 Hours premiered as a television news series on CBS in 1988, it took its name from the 1986 documentary 48 Hours On Crack Street. Dow’s work appeared in the documentary and he was part of the series since its debut.
Before joining CBS, Dow broke the color barrier in 1968 as the first African American reporter in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a feat that earned Dow and the news director that hired him death threats.
Dow told the The Record that being a black journalist carried a special weight for him, a man who grew up picking cotton and tobacco during summers on his grandmother’s farm:
During his career at CBS News, Harold got some huge exclusives and highly prestigious awards. And these weren’t stories just handed to him, these were stories he got himself, “old school style.”
CBS did not report the cause of Dow’s death. He lived in Upper Saddle River, N.J.
