American producer of “60 Minutes” succeeding Don Hewitt.
In the last week of January 2003, CBS News announced that Fager would replace the inimitable 80-year-old Don Hewitt as executive producer of the acclaimed newsmagazine, “60 Minutes,” which Hewitt created. Fager is no stranger to CBS; he worked his way up through the ranks of the company’s news broadcasting business.
As a new graduate of Colgate University in 1977 with a degree in English and political science, he landed a job as production assistant at local TV station, WBZ-TV, owned by CBS, and within the year, served as associate director and assignment editor and news writer.
From 1978-79, he was assignment editor at another local station, WGBH-TV and a news writer at WEEI Radio, a CBS station in Boston. In 1979, he was a broadcast producer at KPIX-TV, now the CBS-owned station in San Francisco, and, for the next few years produced many CBS News broadcasts. A producer of “CBS Evening News” from 1985-1988, Fager was part of the original team that developed and launched “48 Hours”.
For five years, from 1989-1994, he was a producer of “60 Minutes.” With that experience under his belt, he became producer of CBS Evening News with Dan Rather in 1994, working his way up to executive producer in 1996, with stellar results for the show, and he played a key role in developing “60 Minutes II.” Fager grew up in Wellesley, MA; he and his wife now live in Connecticut with their three children.