David Bloom, the NBC News reporter who riveted viewers in recent weeks with
his reports from the front lines in Iraq, died Sunday of a pulmonary embolism,
NBC said. He was 39.
Bloom had been traveling with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division outside of
Baghdad. His compelling reports from Iraq were a mainstay of NBC and MSNBC news
coverage of the war.
"We'll always remember those pictures from the first day David and the
3rd ID crossed into Iraq, broadcasting live as the division first
starting rolling north toward Baghdad on the truck that we at NBC affectionately
dubbed the Bloom Mobile," NBC's Katie Couric said Sunday morning on Weekend
Today.
"It was definitely David at his finest -- a dramatic, freewheeling,
breath-taking moment in history, bringing that to us live as it happened," she
added.
MSNBC ran an emotional one-hour tribute to Bloom at 8 p.m. Sunday, and Cable
News Network's Larry King also paid tribute to Bloom. "His death diminishes each
of us and our profession," CNN war correspondent Walter Rodgers said on Larry
King Live.
Bloom is survived by a wife and three daughters.
