60 Minutes boss Jeff Fager was fired for sending a threatening text to a CBS News reporter

CBS News

CBS News reporter Jericka Duncan said on CBS Evening News that it was a text Fager sent to her that got him relieved of his duties today. Duncan said when she reached out to Fager on Sunday to comment on Ronan Farrow's New Yorker story accusing him of groping an intern, she was met with threatening text messages. “If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up you will be responsible for harming me,” Fager texted, according to Duncan. “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 Evening News anchor Jeff Glor told Duncan that Fager's text was "unacceptable." CBS News president David Rhodes said in a statement that Fager's threatening message violated company policy. Fager had earlier released a statement saying CBS "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. 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.” Meanwhile, 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi said CBS News was wrong to fire Fager. “I think it’s a terrible day for CBS News,” she told The New York Times. “I think it is awful. I don’t understand how you get fired over a text message.” But longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft appeared to agree with Fager's punishment. "The text to Jericka Duncan was threatening and inappropriate," he said. "It’s unfortunate and everything about this situation saddens me.”