Once again continuing to report out the sudden firing of the well-respected Catherine Herridge from CBS News, the New York Post’s Alexandra Steigrad reported late Tuesday afternoon that Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the new and extremely woke CBS News president, was selected as one of “13 honorees at the 33rd annual First Amendment Awards” set for March 9 in D.C. by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).
This was despite the fact that, as Steigrad noted, Ciprian-Matthews had clashed with Herridge in the past due to her no-nonsense, intrepid reporting (i.e. doing actual journalism, as opposed to vapid, far-left propaganda) and “signed off on” Herridge’s ouster as part of layoffs by parent company Paramount Global.
As he has throughout the Herridge saga (such as here and here), Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell weighed in on X:
Can't make this up. CBS News fires @CBS_Herridge, then steals her notes, and in disgrace is forced to return them.
— Brent Bozell (@BrentBozell) February 28, 2024
A week later, the president of @CBSNews who signed off on that theft receives an industry free speech award. https://t.co/km5O8sVVKd
The RTDNA — which doubles as another event for liberal journalists and the people they’re supposed to hold to account but instead cuddle with — will also honor one such person they link arms with instead of hold accountable: far-left Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
In 2018, the RTDNA dinner honored then-Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd, who used the speech to argue being “credible and honest” and possessing “transparency” represented “the new objectivity” in journalism.
That was comical since Todd repeatedly refused to disclose his progressive political strategist wife’s political donations to politicians he would interivew, including Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA).
Steigrad also used the piece to reiterate the timing of Herridge’s axing came as she continues to face legal peril for a years-old story from her Fox News days with a U.S. District Court judge demanding she divulge her stories for a story “about a federal probe into a Chinese American scientist.”
CBS tried to save face, arguing the layoffs do “not in any way reflect on or diminish Ingrid’s well-deserved and outstanding journalistic record” that goes back “decades...upholding the highest values of journalism.”
As for laying off Herridge, the CBS rep insisted she “was one of more than 700 people impacted on Feb. 13 at Paramount and dozens more from other news organizations enduring mass layoffs in Washington in the last few months.”
Steigrad had more on how Ciprian-Matthews wasn’t keen on Herridge and never came to the defense of the award-winning correspondent when she was verbally attacked in a 2021 meeting by then-CBS colleague and fellow correspondent, Jeff Pegues (click “expand”):
She also clashed with Ciprian-Matthews, a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post in January.
Indeed, sources speculated that Herridge’s firing could be retaliatory, as the correspondent sparked the 2021 investigation against Ciprian-Matthews.
It began when correspondent Jeff Pegues allegedly went on a 20-minute rant, in which he dressed down a senior correspondent — whose identity was recently revealed as Herridge by Puck News.
A source told The Post at the time, that Ciprian-Matthews, who was in the meeting, did not initially report the incident and attempted to “blame” Herridge for Pegues’ diatribe when it was finally brought to the attention of HR.
The incident opened a Pandora’s Box, as allegations that Ciprian-Matthews had protected Pegues and other diverse correspondents — to the detriment of primarily white, female correspondents — flooded the desk of Jennifer Gordon, an executive vice president of employee relations at Paramount Global who conducted the investigation.
The probe found that Pegues’ behavior was unprofessional, but months later, Ciprian-Matthews supported his promotion to Chief National Affairs and Justice Correspondent.
Despite being sheltered to presumably further some poisonous diversity, equity, and exclusion (DEI) agenda, Pegues was another casualty of the layoffs.
