CBS entered a new stage of turmoil on Wednesday with the ouster of the longtime executive producer of “60 Minutes,” its flagship news brand, amid a cascading scandal over sexual misconduct that days ago ended the career of the network’s chief executive, Leslie Moonves. Jeff Fager, who was only the second person in 50 years to oversee “60 Minutes,” was fired for sending a text message that threatened the career of a CBS reporter, Jericka Duncan, who was looking into allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him and Mr. Moonves. The president of CBS News, David Rhodes, told staff that Mr. Fager’s departure was “not directly related” to those allegations of sexual harassment, which Mr. Fager has denied. But the network said the producer had violated company policy. It would be hard to overstate Mr. Fager’s power inside CBS’s news division, where he succeeded the legendary producer Don Hewitt in overseeing “60 Minutes.” Some members of the show’s staff were livid on Wednesday during a contentious meeting with Mr. Rhodes at the show’s Manhattan office.<doc-sep>The target of the text message that resulted in the firing of "60 Minutes" producer Jeff Fager is having her say. CBS revealed Wednesday that Fager had warned CBS reporter Jericka Duncan, who was reporting on the news division's own sexual-misconduct scandal, to "be careful," adding, "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." In a Wednesday statement sent to USA TODAY, Fager said, "My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it. One such note should not result in termination after 36 years, but it did." But during an appearance on Thursday's "CBS This Morning," Duncan said she found it threatening at the time. "It's even hard to say that today, because, yes, we do receive harsh language all the time, but this is someone who held an enormous amount of power here, who I respected, and I was shocked," she said. "It certainly sounded like a threat," said Gayle King, co-anchor of the morning show, with cohort John Dickerson agreeing. "But, I thank everyone here for their support," Duncan added. "So many comments, I can't say that enough, about the people within this organization who've sent me text messages, emails, viewers, people on Twitter. So, I'm extremely grateful for that." "Big trees are falling at CBS," King assessed. "But I really do believe that the company wants to and will get this right." Fager's ouster came just three days after CBS CEO Leslie Moonves resigned following a new round of sexual assault and harassment accusations made against him. In his statement, Fager said he was fired over the text rather than as a direct result of Sunday's Moonves exposé in The New Yorker. While primarily about the CEO, the story also alleged Fager had allowed sexual harassment and misconduct to go on in his division, enabling misconduct by correspondent Charlie Rose and other male staffers in an atmosphere some likened to a "frat house." Farrow's stories also accused Fager himself of improper behavior, including commenting on one woman's breasts and "becoming belligerent when she rebuffed him" and drunkenly hitting on female staffers at company parties. Fager said The New Yorker allegations are "false." In a staff memo distributed the same day, CBS News chief David Rhodes confirmed: "The action today is not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports, which continue to be investigated independently. However, (Fager) violated company policy and it is our commitment to uphold these policies at every level." CBS News tweeted the news of Fager's departure announcement Wednesday. Bill Owens, who has served as executive editor, will manage the acclaimed newsmagazine while CBS looks for a new executive producer. More:'60 Minutes' chief Jeff Fager will 'stay on vacation' after misconduct allegations at CBS More:CBS CEO Les Moonves becomes most powerful media exec to resign in wake of #MeToo Contributing: Associated Press<doc-sep>"The most powerful media executive in America has now resigned in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and he's my boss – or was my boss," "CBS This Morning" anchor Norah O'Donnell said at the top of Monday's show, hours after the network announced the resignation of the network's longtime CEO, Leslie Moonves. His departure came after six more women accused him of sexual misconduct and intimidation in a bombshell investigation published Sunday by The New Yorker. For the time being, Moonves exits without a severance package. He and the company will donate $20 million to organizations that support the #MeToo movement, an umbrella name for efforts to combat sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace that rose to prominence after last fall's sexual misconduct allegations against film mogul Harvey Weinstein. Those funds will be subtracted from whatever severance is due Moonves – who has held the titles of chairman, president and CEO – after an external investigation into misconduct allegations from a previous New Yorker report reveals its findings. Joseph Ianniello, a 13-year CBS veteran who has been the company's chief operating officer since 2013, has been appointed president and acting CEO, filling Moonves' post at least temporarily. The chairman position will remain open until the company names a permanent CEO. "Untrue allegations from decades ago are now being made against me that are not consistent with who I am," Moonves said Sunday night in a statement provided to USA TODAY, calling his career at CBS "an incredible privilege." "I am deeply saddened to be leaving the company. I wish nothing but the best for the organization, the newly comprised board of directors and all of its employees." During her Monday morning remarks, O'Donnell noted, "For me, it's been another sleepless night ... this pain that women feel; the courage that it takes for women to come forward and talk about this." O'Donnell added that she and co-anchor Gayle King, who was off Monday, had been discussing the Moonves case via phone and text over the weekend. "I said, 'Gayle, I'm kind of looking back to November, when we dealt with accusations against our former co-host (Charlie Rose, who was fired over sexual-misconduct allegations of his own). And Gayle said, 'Yeah, but I didn't think we'd still be the story in September. And 10 months later, we're still talking about this.' " The latest New Yorker story by Pulitzer Prize winner Ronan Farrow includes allegations that Moonves, 68, forced oral sex, exposed himself, committed violent acts and derailed careers in incidents that occurred from the 1980s to the early 2000s. In the new report, the accusers, who give their names, describe a range of damning actions. Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, who was a Moonves colleague at Lorimar-Telepictures studio in the 1980s, describes an incident in 1986 in which she says Moonves forced her to perform oral sex. She says Moonves suggested going to lunch on a work day but instead drove to a secluded area where he "grabbed my head and he took it all the way down onto his penis, and pushed his penis into my mouth.” Late last year, as the #MeToo movement rose to call out and fight back against perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault, Golden-Gottlieb filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department. Farrow writes that law enforcement sources found her allegation credible, but the statute of limitations had expired. In later incidents, Golden-Gottlieb says Moonves left his office and returned not wearing pants and that he threw her against a wall. Other women describe forced kissing, groping and propositions, with many of the encounters taking place during work time, as well as later efforts to harm careers. Writer Linda Silverthorn, who says she had consensual sexual encounters with Moonves when she was an assistant and he was a vice president at 20th Century Fox, tells Farrow she was harassed when she arrived for a business meeting six years later, in 1990, at Warner Bros., where Moonves was an executive. Silverthorn, who was hoping to secure a development deal, says before the conversation started “he kissed me while we were standing up. … And then he just pulled his penis out.” She called the action “unwelcome” and said their earlier encounters did not “allow him to just grab me and pull his penis out on me when I’m there for a legitimate business meeting.” Later, she says, Moonves told her the studio had no work opportunities for her. Deborah Kitay, who gave Moonves massages when she worked as a massage therapist in the 1990s, says Moonves exposed himself to her and asked her to touch his penis. In addition to the six accusers named in the story, Farrow reports that massage therapists at Washington's Four Seasons hotel in D.C. complained of sexual misconduct by Moonves in the late 1990s and early 2000s. "It was quite a few times that those women would come back and say, ‘I’m never going up there again,’ ” Debra Williams, who was then spa director, tells Farrow, adding that a hotel official warned Moonves to stop the behavior. USA TODAY reached out to Daniel Petrocelli, Moonves' lawyer, for comment after The New Yorker story was published. Moonves, in a statement included in the report, acknowledged three encounters before his tenure at CBS but said they were consensual and added: “The appalling accusations in this article are untrue. … And I have never used my position to hinder the advancement or careers of women. … I can only surmise they are surfacing now for the first time, decades later, as part of a concerted effort by others to destroy my name, my reputation, and my career." UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy organization that had called for Moonves to be fired without severance, called his departure a victory. "The era where powerful men abused and harassed women without consequence is starting to come to an end," Shaunna Thomas, the group's co-founder, said in a statement to USA TODAY. "No one should be forced to work in an environment where sexual harassment and abuse run wild.<doc-sep>"CBS’ decision to fire Moonves for cause is clearly the right decision. If they reward Moonves’ decades of sexual harassment with a massive golden parachute, it will be shameful and compounds the damage of his decades of unchecked abuse,” she wrote in a message to The Post. “As the first Fortune 500 company executive to be held accountable, CBS is setting the new standard that should become the norm across corporate America: ‘if you abuse women, you lose your job and your golden parachute.’”<doc-sep>
A CBS News reporter has spoken out about the threatening text message she received from former 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager, who was fired on Wednesday in the wake of recent accusations of sexual misconduct and fostering an abusive workplace. “I am that reporter,” CBS journalist Jericka Duncan announced on CBS Evening News Wednesday night, recounting her exchange with Fager. Duncan said she reached out to Fager on Sunday, after a New Yorker story detailed an allegation against him in which a woman said he groped her at a party. Other former CBS employees have said Fager touched employees in ways that made them uncomfortable at parties. Fager, who denied the claims, told Duncan to “be careful” in a text message. “If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up you will be held responsible for harming me,” Fager told Duncan in the text. “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.” CBS News president David Rhodes said Fager’s firing was “not directly related” to the allegations of sexual misconduct but because he violated company policy. Fager said in a statement that he was fired because of the text message. “They terminated my contract early because I sent a text message to one of our own CBS reporters demanding that she be fair in covering the story,” he said. “My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalist receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it. One such note should not result in termination after 36 years but it did.” Fager’s ouster comes just three days after CBS Chief Leslie Moonves resigned after being accused by several women of sexual misconduct in a New Yorker article published Sunday. Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com.