{"id":46339,"date":"2026-08-15T09:03:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T04:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46339"},"modified":"2026-08-15T09:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T04:03:26","slug":"cbs-news-matt-gutman-accused-of-sexual-harassment-by-former-abc-news-staffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46339","title":{"rendered":"CBS News&#8217; Matt Gutman Accused of Sexual Harassment by Former ABC News Staffer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/matt-gutman\/\" id=\"auto-tag_matt-gutman\" data-tag=\"matt-gutman\">Matt Gutman<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/cbs-news\/\" id=\"auto-tag_cbs-news\" data-tag=\"cbs-news\">CBS News<\/a>\u2018 chief correspondent, has been accused of sexual harassment in a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by a former co-worker at ABC News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tGutman was named in a lawsuit filed by Samira Said, who worked as field producer for ABC News in its Los Angeles bureau. She alleges in the lawsuit she was wrongfully terminated by ABC and that Gutman contributed to a hostile work environment by making \u201csexualized\u201d comments to her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<em>Variety<\/em> has reached out to representatives for ABC and Gutman for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAccording to Said\u2019s lawsuit, during her employment at ABC, she was \u201cplaced on a male-only team including on-air correspondent Matt Gutman\u201d and two additional male crew members. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cWhile the team waited in a public queue during the assignment, Gutman initiated a discussion rating a female correspondent\u2019s appearance and reducing her professional standing to a numerical score based on her physical attributes,\u201d the lawsuit alleges. \u201cThe male crew joined in, continuing to assess the woman\u2019s body and looks in Said\u2019s presence. The men attempted to draw Said into the conversation by soliciting her views. Said declined and stated the conversation was inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOn another occasion, according to the lawsuit, during a press day related to a film release, Said and Gutman \u201cdisagreed about whether the team should leave the work site. In front of multiple coworkers, Gutman responded by making a sexualized insinuation that Said must have an after-hours date in the city and that this is why she did not want to relocate. The remark, made audibly to others, demeaned Said and reduced her professional judgment to a sexualized stereotype.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAccording to Said\u2019s complaint, after she had been assigned to cover events at the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, she \u201cexperienced severe psychological symptoms.\u201d Per the lawsuit, prior to her assignment to Uvalde, she had contracted COVID-19 and \u201cwas still experiencing symptoms from COVID-19\u201d while in Uvalde.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSaid was granted medical leave from August 2022 through January 2023, as her \u201cpsychiatrist continued to certify the medical necessity of her leave on a recurring basis\u201d to ABC and Disney. Per the lawsuit, around January 2023 Said\u2019s psychiatrist had cleared her to return to work, \u201csubject to reasonable accommodations designed to enable her to perform the essential functions of the position while protecting against re-exposure to trauma triggers.\u201d However, she claims, ABC denied her accommodation requests and that ABC News\u2019 L.A. bureau chief David Herndon \u201cmade it clear that unless she returned without restrictions and with full-week availability, she would not be permitted to resume her role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cFollowing her medical leave and accommodation requests, Plaintiff was subjected to materially adverse treatment than she had experienced at any time prior to engaging in protected activity,\u201d Said alleged in the lawsuit. She said around March 2023, Said was \u201cdemoted\u201d to weekend desk shifts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSaid said she was terminated by ABC on March 5, 2025. Shortly prior to that, when said was in the field covering \u201chazardous weather-related events,\u201d she \u201csustained a workplace injury when heavy equipment struck her foot, resulting in a bone contusion. Said reported the injury to her supervisors. A Disney physician evaluated Said and determined that her foot injury did not require her to take leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tSaid is seeking unspecified monetary damages in the lawsuit, filed Friday in Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles, Central District. Among other things, her complaint alleges discrimination and hostile work environment harassment; retaliation for engaging in protected activity; failure to provide reasonable accommodation; breach of express oral contract not to terminate employment without good cause; intentional infliction of emotional distress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tA copy of the lawsuit is available at <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gutman-suit.pdf\">this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tGutman <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/tv\/news\/matt-gutman-joins-cbs-news-bari-weiss-1236604233\/\">joined CBS News on Jan. 5<\/a>. In addition to reporting for \u201cCBS Mornings\u201d and \u201cCBS Evening News,\u201d he serves as a lead correspondent for \u201c48 Hours\u201d and will contribute to future seasons of \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d He previously spent more than 15 years at ABC News, he most recently served as chief national correspondent.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Gutman, CBS News\u2018 chief correspondent, has been accused of sexual harassment in a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by a former co-worker at ABC News. Gutman was named in a lawsuit filed by Samira Said, who worked as field producer for ABC News in its Los Angeles bureau. She alleges in the lawsuit she was wrongfully&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Matt-Gutman.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}