Tucker interviews Catherine Herridge.

Herridge was among twenty CBS News employees laid off on February 13, 2024, among hundreds terminated by CBS parent Paramount Global. At that time, CBS withheld her confidential files from her. She eventually was able to get them back from CBS.

In 2024 Herridge was held in civil contempt of court for refusing to testify regarding the sources for a story. In 2017 Herridge reported on a government investigation of University of Management and Technology and its founder. Charges were never filed. The founder sued several government agencies alleging they had leaked information to Herridge to damage the founder’s reputation. Pursuant to that suit Herridge was ordered to testify about her sources, then held in contempt for refusing to do so.

Her own words:

Around the same time as that contempt ruling in February, I was laid off by CBS News, which I had joined in 2019. (It’s been a rough year.) After locking me out of the building, CBS seized hundreds of pages of my reporting files, including confidential source information. At that time, my primary assignment was the Hunter Biden investigation as well as Special Counsel Robert Hur’s probe of President Biden. A number of my sources told me they feared that by helping me uncover government corruption, they were now going to be exposed.

Thankfully, with support of my union, SAG-AFTRA, the records were returned. But the incident underscored the fragility of confidential sources, and a corporate culture that seemed to diminish journalism by branding the reporting materials as “work product.”