CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman, who recently notched a ratings victory for the network, is now facing a sexual harassment lawsuit stemming from his tenure at rival ABC News.
According to Mediaite, former ABC News field producer Samira Said filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, accusing the married journalist of making sexualized remarks while she worked on his otherwise all-male team and alleging that ABC ultimately terminated her employment in retaliation. Said, who is based in Los Angeles, contends she was wrongfully fired after roughly four years with the network as she grappled with medical issues and sought workplace accommodations, asserting that her requests were met not with support but with hostility and, ultimately, dismissal.
Said, who is seeking unspecified damages, detailed two specific incidents involving the 48-year-old Gutman, who left ABC for CBS News in January, portraying them as emblematic of a broader hostile work environment. In one alleged episode, described in her lawsuit, Gutman is said to have reduced a female colleague to a set of physical attributes while the crew was on assignment.
While the team waited in a public queue during the assignment, Gutman initiated a discussion rating a female correspondents appearance and reducing her professional standing to a numerical score based on her physical attributes. The male crew joined in, continuing to assess the womans body and looks in Saids presence. The men attempted to draw Said into the conversation by soliciting her views. Said declined and stated the conversation was inappropriate. Saids complaint frames this as a moment when professional standards gave way to a locker-room culture that sidelined women and rewarded participation in crude banter.
She further alleges that Gutman publicly belittled her judgment during a separate assignment tied to a film release, again in a manner she characterizes as overtly sexualized. In the legal filing, Said claims: On another occasion, during a press day related to a film release, Said and Gutman disagreed 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.
Said maintains she was ultimately fired in March 2025 after years of enduring what she describes as a hostile work environment, a familiar pattern in legacy media institutions that often preach equity while failing to police their own ranks. The lawsuit surfaces just as Gutman delivered a 4.1 million-viewer boost for CBS while filling in for controversial anchor Tony Dokoupil, underscoring how ratings success can collide with unresolved workplace allegations; CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and representatives for ABC News also could not be reached.
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