CBS Reporter Reveals Text That Got Fager Fired

Jeff Fager complained Wednesday that CBS fired him after 36 years because of a single text message. The 60 Minutes executive producer didn't mention that the message warned a CBS reporter that she could lose her job for reporting on the sexual harassment allegations against him. "If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be responsible for harming me," the message to CBS Evening News reporter Jericka Duncan said, per Deadline. "Be careful. 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 disclosed the contents of the text on CBS Evening News Wednesday, the Washington Post reports. She said Fager sent it to her after she asked for comment on a Ronan Farrow New Yorker story in which multiple female CBS staffers accused Fager of groping them at company events and ignoring a culture of sexual harassment that one former intern said was the worst she had ever experienced. CBS News president David Rhodes said Fager was fired for violating company policy, Variety reports. Fager said in a statement that the firing had nothing to do with "false allegations," but happened after he "sent a text message to one of our own CBS reporters demanding that she be fair in covering the story." (CBS chief Les Moonves is also out after allegations of sexual misconduct.)