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Katie Couric Says 60 Minutes Rejected Her Lady Gaga and Hillary Clinton Pitches
Katie Couric said on a podcast that former 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager turned down her profile ideas for Lady Gaga and Hillary Clinton. The claims appear as CBS News undergoes leadership changes under new ownership.
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com reported. Couric said on the Call Her Daddy podcast that Fager dismissed her Lady Gaga idea, which was later assigned to Anderson Cooper about a year afterward. She also stated that she was assigned a Hillary Clinton profile that another CBS team pursued without her knowledge.
Couric joined CBS News in 2006 as the first woman to serve as solo anchor of a major network evening newscast and left the network in 2011. Fager succeeded Don Hewitt as executive producer of 60 Minutes in 2004 and departed CBS in 2018 after the company said he violated policy in connection with a text message. The allegations resurface amid upheaval at 60 Minutes.
Bill Owens, who succeeded Fager, resigned in 2025. Bari Weiss later took over as editor-in-chief of CBS News under new owner Paramount Skydance. Under Weiss, the network replaced Tanya Simon with Nick Bilton as executive producer, dismissed correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, and fired Scott Pelley after he confronted management about the dismissals.
Anderson Cooper stepped away from 60 Minutes earlier this year.
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