Katie Couric reveals behind-the-scenes drama at ’60 Minutes’ that made her ‘crazy’
Podcast host and journalist Katie Couric discussed some behind-the-scenes drama from her time at CBS on Wednesday during an interview with the "Call Her Daddy" podcast.
Couric told "Call Her Daddy" host Alex Cooper that "60 Minutes" was her dream, and explained a story idea she had pitched about Lady Gaga and said that the producer at "60 Minutes" at the time, Jeff Fager, didn't like her.
"I was sort of seen as somebody from a different network coming in and sort of muddying the waters and I hadn't come up in the CBS system. So I don't know. He just didn't like me and I remember saying to the people who work on '60 Minutes,' I've got this great idea, because I always felt like ‘60 Minutes’ was a little behind on like big cultural moments."
"I said there's this incredible singer and I think she's going to be the next Madonna," Couric continued. "She's so interesting. She went to Catholic school, but she's so outrageous, and she is huge, and she's got a huge number one song. I think we should do a profile of this person, Lady Gaga. And they're like, ‘Mmm.’ And so they, the producer, who now is a good friend of mine, called me and said, 'You know, I talked to Jeff, and he said it's not for us.' And I said, ‘OK.'"
Couric worked as a "60 Minutes" correspondent at CBS, but was also an anchor for "CBS Evening News."
"Fast forward a year, and she calls me and says, ‘Hey, guess what? Jeff wants to do the piece on Lady Gaga.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, well, she's kind of overexposed now. She was on the cover of Rolling Stone,'" she said.
After pitching an updated idea on Lady Gaga, she explained that somebody else had gotten the interview.
"I said, ‘Okay. Well, that's great. Maybe we could do a different angle. Maybe we could talk to the nuns who educated her at Sacred Heart and kind of talk about this juxtaposition of her background and education and this outrageous singer she's become.’ So they said, ‘Great.’ So I was all excited. I went back over, and they had a whiteboard at CBS, and they had the name of the correspondent and the story next to it. And I see Lady Gaga- Anderson Cooper," Couric explained.
She said it made her "crazy."
The former CBS employee said a similar situation happened with an interview with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.
"But that happened again with Hillary Clinton. They said Jeff Fager, the executive producer, said, ‘Katie, we want you to do a profile of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.’ I said, ‘That's awesome. Maybe I could really focus on the work she's doing for women and girls all around the world,'" she said.
She then said the State Department called and expressed confusion because Scott Pelley, a "60 Minutes" correspondent, had been reaching out to the State Department about doing a feature on Clinton.
"So, I go to Jeff Fager and I say, ‘I thought you wanted me to do Hillary. You told me explicitly that you wanted to assign that story to me,’" she said, discussing her interaction with Fager.
Fager told her, according to Couric, that they decided to go into a different direction.
The journalist said she was being "gaslit."
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"Well, that's I think the point, you know, that it was sort of a bald-faced lie. And then it was being done behind my back, like without even the decency to call me and say, ‘Guess what? We've decided to reassign this story and this is why,'" she said. "Instead, I have to find out because the State Department spokesperson tells my producer. So, stuff like that was, you know, talk about getting gaslit. I mean, to me, that is the definition of it."
Fox News Digital reached out to CBS for comment.
Tensions at CBS reached a new high earlier this month after correspondent Scott Pelley was fired following a bitter clash with the network's editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and new "60 Minutes" executive producer Nick Bilton.
Couric said during her online show that she understood why Pelley was let go, and said Weiss had no choice.
"I don't think that Bari Weiss had any choice but to let Scott Pelley go," Couric said earlier this month. "I mean, I think it's a classic definition of insubordination."
