CBS correspondent Matt Gutman sued for sexual harassment by former ABC producer

On Friday, August 14, 2026, former ABC News field producer Samira Said filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman, ABC News, The Walt Disney Company, and former ABC Los Angeles bureau chief David Herndon. The lawsuit alleges that Gutman made sexualized remarks toward Said during their time working together at ABC, and that ABC later fired her after denying her medical accommodations related to trauma from covering the Uvalde school shooting.

Said worked in ABC News's Los Angeles bureau from May 2021 until March 2025. The complaint describes two incidents involving Gutman. In the first, while Said was assigned to an all-male team, Gutman initiated a conversation rating a female correspondent's appearance, reducing her professional standing to a numerical score based on her physical attributes. The male crew members joined in and tried to draw Said into the conversation, but she declined and stated it was inappropriate. In the second incident, during a press day for a film release, Said and Gutman disagreed about whether the team should leave the site. Gutman allegedly made a sexualized insinuation that Said must have an after-hours date in the city, a remark made audibly to others that demeaned her and reduced her professional judgment to a sexualized stereotype.

The lawsuit also details Said's experiences covering the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. She was assigned to cover the shooting while experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and her assignment included interviewing child survivors who witnessed the massacre. After returning, she suffered severe psychological symptoms. A psychiatrist approved a medical leave, but after it started, Said was still given assignment requests. When she was cleared to return in January 2023, she requested reasonable accommodations to prevent trauma triggers. Said claims that ABC's HR department pressured her to drop these accommodations, and that Herndon made it clear she would not be permitted to resume her role unless she returned without restrictions and with full-week availability. She was later moved to weekend desk shifts and assigned to cover the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, which ignored her accommodation requests. During that assignment, heavy equipment allegedly struck her foot, causing a bone contusion. ABC terminated Said on March 5, 2025, during what was presented as a routine meeting.

Gutman, 48, joined CBS in January 2026 as the first major on-air hire under CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, after 17 years at ABC. He has a history of on-air errors, including falsely reporting that all four of Kobe Bryant's children died in a 2020 helicopter crash (only Bryant and his daughter Gianna died), violating ABC's COVID-19 policy by visiting a hospital without approval in 2021, and making controversial comments about text messages between the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk and his transgender roommate. Gutman has not yet publicly responded to the lawsuit. CBS is not a party to the suit. Said is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys' fees, and a jury trial.