EX-CBS Reporter Catherine Herridge Says Network Crossed ‘Red Line’ After Killing Hunter Biden Reporting and Elon Musk Interview: ‘I Felt So Ashamed’
Journalist Catherine Herridge accused her former network of crossing a “red line” after they not only terminated her employment, but also attempted to seize her records.
Herridge joined NewsNation’s Dan Abrams, the founder of Mediaite, on Tuesday and she recounted how network executives at CBS News allegedly thwarted her reporting on President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, while also placing strange restrictions on a potential Elon Musk interview that ultimately killed the project altogether. Herridge is now working independently and she’s been speaking out about her firing at CBS and what she says fueled it.
“Catherine Herridge is a straight shooter. She cares broadly about journalists being able to report accurate stories without any interference from the government or their bosses,” Abrams said in his introduction of Herridge.
Herridge was let go by CBS earlier this year. The journalist recalled being told by the head of the network to pursue a story on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. After a “forensic review,” Herridge found multiple potential stories worth pursuing, including Hunter Biden using racist language and multiple email accounts being tied to the president. She said network executives then told her they weren’t interested in any coverage on the subject.
“I just found, Dan, there was this kind of disconnect between this directive I received at the top and internal resistance I found among the executives at CBS News,” she said.
Herridge said she also received pushback when in the fall of 2023 she presented the network with an opportunity to interview Musk. The interview would have been live and broadcast on X, neither of which CBS was happy about. They wanted it taped and edited and only airing on CBS.
“Quite frankly, I felt so ashamed that a news organization would place so many restrictions on an interview, and you know, Dan, typically it’s the interview subject that’s placing the restrictions on an interview, not the network,” she said.
Herridge faced similar internal backlash when reporting on the investigation into President Biden’s storage of classified documents. After she was let go, Herridge said CBS crossed a line by trying to seize her “reporting records.”
She said:
“If you just look at the fact pattern here, you can see that there was a lot of internal resistance with the Hunter Biden reporting, also special counsel Robert Hur and his findings related to Joe Biden and I was let go. But more importantly, my reporting records were seized and that is just a red line that no corporation should ever cross in the future. And because my union stepped in and there was a lot of public outrage, CBS News did the right thing and they returned those files. But even seizing those files has a chilling effect on investigative reporting.”
“Absolutely, that’s inexcusable,” Abrams said.
Watch above via NewsNation.
