
Leslie Moonves was the headliner of Ronan Farrow‘s latest exposé of sexual misconduct in Hollywood, but a considerable portion of the Pulitzer Prize winner’s latest report in The New Yorker focuses on allegations against CBS News and its former chair Jeff Fager. That includes 19 current and former employees who claimed that Fager, who division chair from 2011-15 and now executive producer of 60 Minutes, condoned harassment in the division.
“It’s top down, this culture of older men who have all this power and you are nothing,” one veteran producer told Farrow. “The company is shielding lots of bad behavior.”
60 Minutes, the news division’s flagship program, for which ousted Charlie Rose was a contributing correspondent, has been a focal point of allegations, some involving Fager himself.
Six former employees told Farrow that Fager would, when inebriated at company parties, touch employees in ways that made them uncomfortable or make in appropriate remarks. One producer said she left the show because of “a very toxic culture toward women.”
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Others said Fager protected men accused of misconduct. In one incident, a senior producer named Vicki Gordon alleged that another senior producer, Michael Radutzky, threatened to throw furniture at her and twisted her arm behind her back, causing her to scream. Radutzky denied the allegations. Fager said he would address the matter with Radutzky directly but later asked Gordon to apologize to Radutzky, in order to mitigate conflict in the office, Farrow reported.
“It was common knowledge at 60 Minutes that Michael Radutzky was an out-of-control guy, especially but not exclusively toward women,” David Gelber, a former producer, told Farrow. “We all saw it, almost on a daily basis. And yet Fager not only tolerated him — he elevated him to a position of leadership, even after Fager knew perfectly well how abusive he was.”
Sophie Gayter, a 60 Minutes employee who alleged in a Washington Post report last year that Rose had groped her, told Farrow that Fager “enabled the other men on the floor to do whatever the heck they wanted.” Fager, one network executive said, “would let people know he communicated with Les directly,” adding that “people took that to mean Les supported him completely.”
Katie Couric was an anchor at the network and contributing correspondent for 60 Minutes from 2006-11, when Fager helped force her out. She described CBS News to Farrow as being “like a boys club, where a number of talented women seemed to be marginalized and undervalued.”
In a statement, Fager noted that a “majority” of the senior staff are women, telling Farrow, “It is wrong that our culture can be falsely defined by a few people with an ax to grind who are using an important movement as a weapon to get even, and not by the hundreds of women and men that have thrived, both personally and professionally, at 60 Minutes.”

And Lesley Stahl, a 60 Minutes correspondent since 1991, told Farrow for his report, “This notion that 60 Minutes is an unpleasant, unwelcoming place for women isn’t true.”
“In my own experience, Jeff is supportive of women and decent to women,” she elaborated.
Anderson Cooper, who has been a correspondent for the show since 2006, told Farrow he had never seen Fager in any inappropriate behavior, while admitting he only works there part time.
Gayter and another junior female employee told Farrow their bosses asked them to complete the company’s mandatory sexual-harassment online training programs for them.
A former journalist at 60 Minutes named Habiba Nosheen told Farrow she had complained to management that Ira Rosen, a producer on the program, had subjected her to numerous sexual comments and suggested she flirt with sources. Two other women reported similar experiences with Rosen to Farrow. In a statement, Rosen said, “CBS extensively investigated these complaints and found them to be false, misleading, and unsubstantiated.”
In response to queries, CBS News sent a statement to Deadline from CBS Chief Compliance Officer which included this:
CBS previously retained attorney Betsy Plevan of Proskauer Rose to conduct an independent investigation of alleged misconduct at CBS News. Ms. Plevan’s work is ongoing, and includes investigating allegations in this story. CBS has taken the allegations reported in the press seriously, and respects the role of the press in pursuing the truth, which is a role that is central to the mission of CBS News.
#JusticeForSilverSpoonsAndPunkyBrewster
Yes, I’ve been holding a grudge that long. At least those shows were upfront about being fictional.
I find Jeff Fager’s statement on this matter deeply suspect. He’s trivializing and reducing 19 current or former employees to “a few people” and diverting and distracting you from their allegations by hoping you’ll be impressed when he points instead to the “hundreds” of other CBS employees under his watch who thrived…and didn’t make waves. “Look here,” he seems to say, “at the vast majority who did perfectly fine here, and pay no mind to the tiny minority who say otherwise.” His strong inference is that the 19 must be an anomaly when compared to the universe of people at CBS, including many women, who ascended the ladder of success. But they’re more than an anomaly, you see. He tells you himself: they have an “ax to grind.”
Yet you read all of their allegations with their granular degrees of specificity, and you have to wonder: are all of these individuals, with their tales of Fager’s boorish drunken antics at parties and his tolerance of bad behavior in the workplace, ALL grinding an ax? Or is it more that Fager is engaging in a slick bit of sleight of hand and subterfuge, and a careful game of CYA?
After all, what of these other reports out there that Fager hired a law firm to quash negative stories about him in the press? That smacks of someone with something to hide.
As a fellow Colgate University graduate, I know that Fager knows better than to offer up a statement with such flimsy underpinnings and crappy rationalizations. His carefully parsed phrasing is evasive and weak — and betrays the legacy of great professors like Balmuth and Terrell, under whom I’m sure Fager must have studied.
Ironic that he’s the Executive Producer of 60 MInutes. How about we give Fager’s own statements and actions the famous “60 Minutes” treatment, and thoroughly scrutinize him? And if he can’t stand up to the scrutiny, then perhaps it’s time for him to find another line of work.
Agreed!
Rough weekend at CBS.
journalists use their smarts to get a story. If you need to “flirt,” so be it. But for employees to be disgusted by the thought is ludicrous. Both men and women journalists understand the world isn’t perfect and just asking the question isn’t going to automatically give you the answer. You use your smarts. Befriend a source? Sure. Work for a company? Fine. Have a drink with a source? Ok. Flirting is one of many tools. Did he ask you to sleep with them? That’s totally different.
Fake news, alternative facts etc etc! The impact of news and news reporting is undeniable. The Profession and the conduct of newspaper personnel and their supervisors must, NOT should, be above reproach to address and honestly refute allegations of bias and predetermined agendas. Dismissing “flirting” as simply part of the ‘Profession’ is degrading and appalling.
I missed it. When did Mia Farrow start running the country?