If you’ve been watching the news at any time in the past 20 years, you’ll know ace national security reporter Catherine Herridge who made her reputation for exclusive, insider reporting on vital issues of defense, intelligence, war and peace as Chief Intelligence Correspondent at Fox News and then moved to CBS News as their Senior Investigative Correspondent from 2019 until she was part of a layoff of several CBS staffers and employees this past week.
Acting Secretary Chad Wolf discusses election security, border wall, and the Department of Homeland Security during an interview with Catherine Herridge of CBS News, October 27, 2020. Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In a shocking move that flies in the face of the Constitutional rights of reporters to protect their sources—a right that American journalists have in the past faced court sanctions and jail to defend, CBS decided to box up ALL of her office materials, including her notebooks, laptop, and confidential files which might contain resources, private informants, and to-the-world-anonymous resources she’s used in her career at CBS AND at Fox in the past, and then told her THEY would decide after searching through them what they would and would not return to her later.
Among many stories, Herridge is known most recently for her reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop and other politically sensitive stories, top secret national security and military and espionage issues, and other journalism into major issues that impact all our lives.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller is interviewed by CBS’ Catherine Herridge, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Dec. 15, 2020. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando) Photo Credit: U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Also potentially included are conversations with her attorneys as she’s currently in a court battle over revealing her sources for stories about a federal probe into a Chinese American scientist who operated a graduate program in Virginia. The story, written while she was at Fox News in 2017, has a judge threatening to hold Herridge in contempt of court if she does not reveal her sources with a potential penalty of $5,000 a day. Because they have access to these notes and materials, CBS could be subpoenaed to obtain the secrets as a way for a judge to go around Herridge’s brave defense of the principles of free speech and journalistic ethics enshrined in our constitution. Fox is paying for her legal expenses in that case, but it is not the only problem with CBS’s confiscatory actions.
Herridge had conflicts with her bosses at CBS over her Hunter Biden revelations and much friction with CBS News President Ingrid-Ciprian Matthews who has been investigated in the past for favoritism and discriminatory hiring practices. It is speculated by some sources that Herridge may have information in her notes and computer that would be used in a lawsuit against CBS for wrongful termination.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller is interviewed by CBS’ Catherine Herridge, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Dec. 15, 2020. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando) Photo Credit: U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Legal Scholar Jonathan Turley, who first broke the news about Herridge’s materials being confiscated by CBS, noted that the timing of Herridge’s termination was suspicious. “She was purusing stories that were unwelcomed by the Biden White House and many Democratic powerhouses, including the Hur report on Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity, the Biden corruption scandal, and the Hunter Biden laptop,” Turley opined.
Not only could the CBS possession of her personal materials violate journalistic ethics, it is a violation of HIPPA Laws as her files may also contain personal and family medical records. Turley said CBS’s “heavy-handed approach” to the files is “dead wrong” and that it had sent “a chilling signal in the ranks” of the network.
Now, the union for actors AND on-air personalities like Herridge, SAG/AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Actors) has issued a strong public protest against CBS’s behavior, stating the following:
SAG-AFTRA strongly condemns CBS News’ decision to seize Catherine Herridge’s reporter notes and research from her office, including confidential source information. This action is deeply concerning to the union because it sets a dangerous precedent for all media professionals and threatens the very foundation of the First Amendment.
It is completely inappropriate for an employer to lay off a reporter and take the very unusual step of retaining and searching the reporter’s files, inclusive of confidential source identification and information. From a First Amendment standpoint, a media corporation with a commitment to journalism calling a reporter’s research and confidential source reporting “proprietary information” is both shocking and absurd.The retention of a media professional’s reporting materials by their former employer is a serious break with traditional practices which supports the immediate return of reporting materials. We urge CBS to return this material to Catherine in support of the most basic of First Amendment principles. We are encouraged by recent outreach by CBS News to SAG-AFTRA on this matter, and we are hopeful that it will be resolved shortly.”
We here at That Park Place will keep up with what happens in this ongoing story about media, culture, and Constitutional rights as we do with all such stories, be they about entertainment or news and the ways we as audiences experience the ethics, or lack of them, in those industries.
