On Friday, Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell sent a letter to CBS and CBS News lambasting the Tiffany Network for their troubling and unprecedented decision to seize the files of correspondent Catherine Herridge – including notes and files that contain sensitive information and government sources – upon her sudden firing as part of layoffs from parent company Paramount Global.
Thankfully, based on a statement from Herridge’s union SAG-AFTRA and CBS itself, the network appears set to fold after having messed with the wrong reporter.
Bozell called the seizure – which was first reported by Jonathan Turley in his column for The Hill – a “journalistic malpractice” and “unquestionably against journalistic standards”, adding CBS laying her off “has damaged its reputation and journalism as a whole”.
He then turned up the heat and tore into CBS for disrespecting “one of the core principles” of journalism in protecting sources and asking whether the choice in include her in the layoffs was due to her unflinching coverage of Biden family corruption or pressure from the Biden regime:
Anyone familiar with the field of journalism, such as yourself, should know that one of the core principles is the protection of a reporter’s sources. To hold confidential files Ms. Herridge had, including some from her time at Fox News, is in rare form. Ms. Herridge’s files belong to her, not your network.
(….)
Ms. Herridge was one of the few remaining journalists at CBS that actually deserved to be called a reporter. Despite pressure from leadership, she actually covered the flaws of the Left, including the Biden Bribery Scandal. Was the seizure of her files retribution for her investigative reporting on Democrats? Did the White House have anything to do with this incident, or is it merely election interference on behalf of CBS? Your readers and viewers deserve answers.
Along with calling for CBS to return her files and “apologize…on-air”, Bozell answered some of the above questions himself, ripping CBS for “hav[ing] not only terminated her for defying your political beliefs and retained her files in the face of basic journalistic ethics,” but engaged in behavior that “reeks of election interference and deserves full investigation.”
In the aforementioned SAG-AFTRA statement from Thursday night, they said CBS’s behavior was “absurd” and “deeply concerning to the union” and “sets a dangerous precedent for all media professionals” because “[i]t 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.”
They added that such a “retention of a media professional's reporting materials by their former employer is a serious break with traditional practices”, but “are encouraged by recent outreach by CBS News to SAG-AFTRA on this matter, and we are hopeful that it will be resolved shortly.”
Also on Thursday night, CBS seemed to have cried uncle, telling reporters such as CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Puck’s Dylan Byers that Herridge’s “personal belongings were delivered to her home one week ago, and we are prepared to pack up the rest of her files immediately on her behalf…as she requested” and “have respected her request to not go through the files, and out of our concern for confidential sources, the office she occupied has remained secure since her departure."
Exit question: Does anyone actually believe this?
