Jeff Fager Was Fired After Sending Warning Text to CBS News Reporter

CBS News on Wednesday fired "60 Minutes" top executive Jeff Fager, who has been under investigation following reports that he groped women at parties and tolerated an abusive workplace.

Bill Owens will manage the "60 Minutes" team until a new executive producer is hired.

His firing came only three days after the CBS Corp. board ousted the company's chief executive, Leslie Moonves, who was charged with sexual misconduct in the same New Yorker articles. Late past year, former "CBS This Morning" host Charlie Rose was sacked after more than 2 dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct.

The memo also claims that Fager's departure is "not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports" though he "violated company policy". However, he violated company policy and it is our commitment to uphold those policies at every level. A CBS News reporter working on a story about Fager revealed that he had sent her a text message urging her to "be careful". In a statement of his own, Fager said the termination was over a text message: "The company's decision had nothing to do with the false allegations printed in The New Yorker. One such note should not result in termination after 36 years, but it did", Fager said.

Fager responded to Duncan's request for comment, a journalistic standard, with an angry response telling the reporter she would be "held responsible for harming me" if she repeated the allegations without her own reporting on the subject.

At the end of Duncan's report, anchor Jeff Glor said to her, "That message was unacceptable. There are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me, and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own reporting to back them up, that will become a serious problem, '" Duncan said.

In November 2017, CBS News dropped Charlie Rose following a Washington Post investigation detailing allegations of unwanted sexual advances toward women. He also introduced "CBS This Morning" in January 2012. "Similar frustrations about perceived inaction have prompted another woman to raise a claim of misconduct against Jeff Fager".

In July, six former CBS News employees told The New Yorker that Fager "would touch employees in ways that made them uncomfortable" after drinking at office parties.

Sarah Johansen said that when she was an intern Fager allegedly groped her buttocks at a party, and she was later told this move was referred to as the 'Fager arm'. The programme 60 Minutes, which airs on Sunday evenings, was first broadcast in 1968.