Jeffrey Fager

Jeff Fager became the first chairman of CBS News in February 2011, after re-shaping its flagship broadcast, "60 Minutes," into an editorially more vibrant and news-conscious program that regularly makes Nielsen's Top 10 and wins unprecedented amounts of awards. His efforts to improve the hit program online have also made the "60 Minutes" brand a hit on the Internet and the model of successful electronic journalism in the digital age. In his new role, he continues to oversee "60 Minutes," while executing his plan to transfer that success to all of the news division's platforms, on television, radio and the Internet.

Fager comes to the chairman's position with more than 30 years of experience at every stage of the electronic news business, including 15 years at the executive producer level, seven of those at the helm of "60 Minutes." There, Fager upheld the program's legendary standard of quality storytelling but also instituted a new graphic look and re-focused it on breaking news to keep it relevant in a new and challenging era. A pioneer in journalism's crucial mission to create and grow revenue streams online, he cultivated "60 Minutes"' Internet presence by revamping 60Minutes.com and by initiating groundbreaking digital partnerships with Yahoo! and Comcast. He then built 60MinutesOvertime.com, an innovative, single-sponsored website that was the first to stream web-only "60 Minutes" content. Fager also guided the creation and launch of the critically acclaimed "60 Minutes" iPad app, which is now one of the most popular paid apps available.

These efforts have resulted in an average television audience more than double that of its nearest newsmagazine competition and a growth in that audience of +1 percent over the 2010-'11 season. This is an exceptional achievement in today's television environment that helped increase "60 Minutes" cumulative reach to 120,901,000 viewers during the season, more than any other primetime non-sports program. Online, thanks mostly to his new digital initiative, streaming of "60 Minutes" videos rose 53 percent, users increased by 40 percent and page views were up by 39 percent.

For his work, the Producers Guild of America voted him best producer in non-fiction television four times and TV Week named him to its top 10 list of most powerful television news executives.

Before assuming control of "60 Minutes," Fager is credited with leading "60 Minutes II" to a slew of major awards over a short period of time as its executive producer for its first five seasons. The awards continued to flow when he took over "60 Minutes."

"60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II" broadcasts executive produced by Fager garnered 33 Emmys, eight Peabodys, eight RTDNA/Edward R. Murrow Awards, four Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University batons, three Sigma Delta Chi Awards and three Investigative Reporting and Editing Awards.

As the executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather from 1996 to 1998, Fager led the broadcast's highly praised rededication to hard news, enterprise reporting and increased foreign coverage. By the time he left to start "60 Minutes II," the CBS Evening News had gained more than one million viewers over the previous year, a gain unmatched by competitors.

Fager was also the senior broadcast producer for the CBS Evening News (1994-96) and covered many major international stories, including the war in Bosnia and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

He had been a producer for "60 Minutes" from 1989 to 1994, primarily working with correspondents Morley Safer and Steve Kroft, and covered several major world events, including the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. He was part of the original team that developed and launched "48 Hours," the primetime CBS News magazine.

Fager served as a producer on the CBS Evening News, based in London (1985-88) and New York (1984-85), covering numerous international stories. He produced segments on Palestinian-Israeli conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan; the bombing of Libya in 1986; the Reagan?Gorbachev summits in Geneva and Iceland; Gorbachev's first foreign visit, to Paris in 1986; and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

He was a producer for other CBS News programs between 1982 and 1984, including the weekend editions of the CBS Evening News, and was a broadcast producer for "Nightwatch," CBS's original overnight news broadcast. He joined CBS News from KPIX?TV San Francisco, where he was a broadcast producer (1979-82).He began his career as a production assistant in Boston in 1977 at the CBS station WBZ-TV, then quickly rose through a succession of television and radio news positions, including news writer and assignment editor.

Fager was born in Wellesley, Mass. He was graduated from Colgate University in 1977 with a B.A. degree in English.

[ethrivrav]

Sloppy and biased journalism doesn't even begin to describe Bob Simon's piece on Christians in the Holy Land. How could someone with as much experience as he has, describe something he can see with his own eyes as something it's not? He was in Bethlehem. He saw the fence. It does NOT completely surround the city. Incompetence or bias is the only explanation for this. Either way, he should be reassigned and 60 Minutes should air a correction. I haven't even addressed all the other distortions, but I don't have time to write a novel.

[Morrisleibowitz]

I just returned from Israel and saw this journalistic excrescence. "Poorly researched" is an inadequate description of this fantasy, "dishonest and purposefully biased" would seem to be a better descriptor. I'm personally offended by the lies and misrepresentations, and deeply disappointed by the journalistic depths to which a previously respected enterprise has plunged.

[elspinn]

Yes, it was indeed a hatchet job. It's shocking that CBS would allow such an unbalanced report to air. Cronkite and Murrow must be turning in their graves...maybe Mike Wallace, too.

[yakovshalom]

Comments on Mr. Bob Simon's recent "report"
As a Jewish Israeli who was married for 11 years to a Greek Orthodox Arab Hadassah doctor/professor (We lived in Jerusalem)...Dr. Najeed Salah; who grew up in Nazereth and whose parents came from Bet Jallah (next to Bethlehem) and whose grandfather was a famous architect who built a well known church in Jerusalem (Old City)... I believe that I am more familiar with the native Christian community than Bob Simon is or ever intended to be and I say catagorically that it's nonsense what he says about Israel "hurting" native Christians in any way. And as far as Israel hurting non native Christians...I was a good friend of Father Marcel Dubois well known Christian and head of the Philosophy department of Hebrew University for years; decorated by both the French and Israeli governments for offering himself up as a hostage during the Entebbe crisis as well as other all faith understanding acts...I say catagorically that you should have investigated the historical separation of Arab Christian and Arab Muslim communities. Intermarriage between the 2 groups is so frowned on that parents automatically disown any children that do so. Something that did not happen when my Greek Orthodox Arab doctor's childhood friend who was a Muslim(but this kind of friendship is rare) married the Jewish daughter of a Kinneset member(said daughter also worked for a while with Al Jezeera news) ...all in all I think that I know what I'm talking about on this subject than Mr. Simon.

[rosarosarum]

Shame on Mr. Simon!

Conclusions are reached at the preparation phase of program development, then come "facts", artfully created/manipulated to "prove" the case.

This is travesty of journalism under any sun. No, I wouldn't call it journalism at all - Pravda would have done better in its heyday!

The stunt was simply manipulative, deceitful infotainment. So glad I do not have to watch such undignified reporting!

[marjoriegann]

I've just watched the controversial fifteen-minute segment of "60 Minutes" on the decline of the Christian population of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

I have to agree with Ambassador Michael Oren that what Bob Simon did with that story was, indeed, a "hatchet job."

Nowhere in Simon's fifteen minutes was there any mention of the actual persecution of Christians by Muslims that has been ongoing in Bethlehem, nor of the fear of the Palestinian Authority that intimidates Christians, making them fearful of opening their mouths to openly criticize the PA; it's safe for them to criticize Israel, which has a free press, but not to criticize the PA, whose thugs take effective measures to shut them up.

In Bethlehem, this type of persecution can take many forms, from the trivial -- like a Christian souvenir shop that finds its shutters painted green, the color of Islam -- or more serious:

In 2006, George Rabie, a cab driver from Beit Jala (near Bethlehem), was beaten up by a Muslim gang from Hebron. Why? He had hung a cross from his windshield. Here's what he had to say about this: "It is a type of racism. We are a minority."

And here's another story: In 2001, the two sisters of Jeriez Moussa Amaro, another Christian from Beit Jala, were shot dead by Muslims. Why? One of them was having an affair with a Muslim. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took "credit" for the murder. "We wanted to clean the Palestinian house of prostitutes." How do the thugs get away with this? According to Jeriez, "A Christian man is weak compared to a Muslim man. They have bigger, more power families and they know people high up in the Palestinian authority." (All of this information is easily available and could have been accessed by Bob Simon, had he wanted to add context to his story. He might have started with "O, Muslim town of Bethlehem," Daily Mail, December 16 2006.)

Is it any wonder Christians are leaving Bethlehem -- the way they have fled Lebanon?

I myself have seen the intimidation first-hand. I drove through Nazareth -- in Israel -- three years ago and saw an anti-Christian demonstration, staged by Muslims, in the main square. It was insulting but, protected by Israel's democracy, the Muslims of the city unfortunately have the right to do this. Notwithstanding, Israel is the only country in the Middle East whose Christian population is growing. Everywhere else in the Middle East, where Muslims are in power, Christians are threatened.

Bob Simon could have mentioned, for comparison, the slaughter of Christians in Egypt and Iraq. He still has a chance: On Sunday, twenty Christians were killed while worshipping at a university in northern Nigeria by Islamic extremists, the Boko Haram. This is the context into which the flight of Christians from Israel and the West Bank fits -- not the security wall.

[Elaina123]

Israelis are not threatening the lives of Christians nor are Christians fleeing the middle east because of the Israelis. Christians are leaving because they are being harassed, terrorized, and sometimes even killed by Muslims. (Think the Coptics of Egypt for starter!)

Why didn't Bob Simon present any Palestinian Christians who said that it was Arabs, not Israel, making life intolerable? How is it that he only managed to find spokespeople who condemned Israel? One could believe those are the only people he was looking for! That is anything but "balance reporting"!

In addition, the way in which Simon spoke to Ambassador Oren was insulting. Simon's facial expressions and sneer were palpably disrespectful.

At the very least, Bob Simon and CBS should apologize and issue a public statement acknowledging their unbalanced, deceitful and disrespectful behavior.

We are truly disappointed in CBS.

Drs. Elaina and Yudi Hershowitz

[Subculture6]

In Bob Simon's report "Christians in the Holy Land", Simons embarrassed Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, by making it seem as if the ambassador complained about the vary damning report (towards Israel) before it was aired - and made it seem as if the ambassador tried manipulating the free press and trying to hide Israel's alleged "mistreatment" of christians in the Holy Land.

It now turns out that this was a ploy, orchestrated by 60 minutes and/or your network; the ambassador was officially informed of the airing of the show and was even requested to respond.

This means someone in your network has been up to some very offensive trickery. In fact the program lies to the public.

I ask that in the interest of truth, fair journalism and the good name of CBS and 60 minutes, that you clear up this issue by issuing a public apology.

[mdeverett]

60 Minutes,Bob Simon, Christians in the Holy Land - I am very concerned about this 60 Minutes' episode. It appeared to me that the report was a biased attack on Israel, the only country in the Middle East that actually protects the rights of Christians. Why would you allow this to be broadcast?

[asdf546]

The 50 minutes piece on Christians in Israel was a disgrace [and false].

Why was Simon outraged by the claim that oppression in the Islamic world was so much greater? The only answer is that he is a self hating Jew, in the model of his cbs predecessor "mike wallace", and most of his leftist Jewish media collagues.

And I dare him to deny it.