Award-winning investigative journalist Catherine Herridge accused her former employer CBS of “journalistic rape” after the network seized her records and files following her departure.
Herridge became one of 800 staffers to get laid off from CBS during its massive purge of employees in February. She was the subject of a First Amendment legal fight at the time of her departure over her refusal to disclose her source for investigative pieces she wrote for Fox News in 2017 regarding a federal probe about Yanping Chen, a Chinese American scientist, who sued the federal government for allegedly leaking private information to the journalist.
CBS allegedly seized her computers, records and files and locked Herridge out of her email upon informing her of the lay off, which she eventually received back, Jonathan Turley wrote. CBS staffers sounded the alarm on the alleged action to Turley, saying they had never seen such a seizure before.
Herridge confirmed to Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan that her position got terminated after she reported facts that painted President Joe Biden’s administration in a negative light.
“When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your reporting files, including confidential source information, that is an attack on investigative journalism,” Herridge said.
“I just want to be clear, congressman. Wherever you work, if this happened to you, it’s an attack on free press. It’s an attack on the First Amendment. It makes it more challenging for reporters to work in the future. That disrupts the free flow of information to the public,” she continued. “They call journalism a profession for a reason, because it’s about an informed electorate, and it’s a cornerstone for our democracy. I can only speak for myself. When my records were seized, I felt it was a journalistic rape.” (RELATED: ‘Shot Across The Bow’: CBS News Correspondent Says 2024 Will Bring ‘Incredible Legal Exposure’ In Hunter Biden’s Case)
SAG-AFTRA chief news and broadcast officer Mary Cavellaro said she is unfamiliar with any case of outlets seizing a former employee’s files.
“That should scare us too,” Jordan said. “The first time it ever happened and it happens to an award-winning journalist who’s been in this profession for a number of years, known all across the profession, and that happens on the heels of what happened to Ms. Atkinson because both journalists were critical of the government. That’s exactly what the — that’s what journalism’s about, being critical of the government when the government’s doing things wrong and then to have a major news organization or the government itself do this …”
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper held Herridge in civil contempt at the end of February over her refusal to hand over her confidential source and sanctioned a $800 daily fine to compel compliance. She was ordered to disclose the source during an August deposition, but refused to do so citing First Amendment protections.