Jeff Fager, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” took over the writing of a book on the CBS show’s 50-year history after objecting to the direction of the original author’s research, according to three people familiar with how the book came to be.

The assignment originally went to Richard Zoglin, a former editor at Time magazine and the author of a 2014 biography of Bob Hope. After having completed roughly a dozen interviews in 2015, however, Mr. Zoglin was summoned to meet with Mr. Fager, who told the writer that he was focusing too much on the negative.

Specifically, Mr. Fager expressed concern that Mr. Zoglin had asked his interview subjects about the treatment of women in the “60 Minutes” workplace, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal matters. Mr. Fager also asked Mr. Zoglin why he had brought up the rocky tenure of Katie Couric, a onetime correspondent for the show and former CBS News anchor who left the network on bad terms.

Image Jeff Fager, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” took over the job of writing a book celebrating the show’s 50 years after the original writer, Richard Zoglin, had conducted about a dozen interviews.

The men agreed that Mr. Zoglin should leave the project. In October, when “Fifty Years of ‘60 Minutes’” was published under Mr. Fager’s name, the 400-page book included scant mention of the issues raised by Mr. Zoglin.