MRC Fretted That Catherine Herridge — Its Favorite Biased Reporter — Got Laid Off

Catherine Herridge has long been a favorite of the Media Research Center — after all, she gained fame as a correspondent for Fox News, where she reliably forwarded right-wing narratives. Even when she moved on to the hated CBS News in 2019, the MRC didn’t mind because she pretty much did the same thing; one post gushed that “It’s clear Herridge still hasn’t been deprogrammed by CBS after learning real journalism at Fox News.” In the MRC’s eyes, only reporters with a right-wing bias offer “real journalism.” When CBS and its parent company laid off hundreds of people earlier this year, the only one the MRC cared about was Herridge. Nicholas Fondacaro built a conspiracy theory around her layoff in a Feb. 14 post:

Former Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge was the one serious journalist inside the liberal broadcast networks to truly investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Biden family’s web of corruption; when she joined CBS News as an investigative correspondent. But as of Tuesday, Herridge found herself out of a job amid a wave of firings at the network and Paramount Global properties. Her ouster drew outrage from her coworkers at the Washington, D.C. Bureau.

It was the New York Port who broke the story in “Bloodbath at Paramount claims 800 jobs including CBS News journalists embroiled in controversy.”

According to Post media reporter Alexandra Steigrad, Herridge might have been targeted directly by the network’s president: “Sources said Herridge had clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews — a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post.”

Apparently, it was Herridge’s dogged persistence in investigating Hunter Biden that put her on the chopping block:

Fondacaro concluded by huffing: “So, clearly, CBS didn’t want truth-tellers in their investigative unit.” His employer, meanwhile, was totally cool with Fox News not telling the truth to its viewers about (the lack of) election fraud, making his concern over Herridge about partisanship, not journalism.

A few days later, the MRC ramped up the victimhood for Herridge in a Feb. 22 post by Curtis Houck:

Writing Thursday morning for The Hill, Fox News contributor and George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley dropped a bombshell about this month’s layoffs at CBS News; that the network seized the files of Catherine Herridge, who was sadly one of the correspondents let go and one of the only actual reporters in network news.

Turley noted that, while it was shocking enough that she no longer had a job, the questions surrounding the choice to let her go (as part of wider layoffs at parent company Paramount Global) have exacerbated “after CBS officials took the unusual step of seizing her files, computers and records, including information on privileged sources.”

He further alleged CBS “informed her that it would decide what, if anything, would be turned over to her”, presumably including “confidential material from both her stints at Fox and CBS.”

But Turley named no on-the-record sources in his article in The Hill making the claims, making it impossible to verify. Indeed, CBS denied Herridge’s files were seized: “Catherine’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 – with her representative present as she requested. We are awaiting a response from Catherine and/or her representative to do so. We 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.”

Unsurprisingly, the MRC got further involved, as Houck detailed in a Feb. 23 post:

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:

Houck finally noted CBS’ denial at the end of his post, sneering: “Exit question: Does anyone actually believe this?”

When Herridge’s files were returned by CBS as promised, Houck served up a Feb. 27 post that relied on another anonymously sourced right-wing article:

On Monday afternoon, the New York Post dropped an exclusive that, after a few days of public wrangling and possible legal action, CBS News returned to Catherine Herridge her confidential files — including sensitive material, potentially containing sourcing — after having been seized when she was unceremoniously fired as part of layoffs by parent company Paramount Global.

Reporter Alexandra Steigrad had the story: “CBS News on Monday finally returned confidential files belonging to fired investigative reporter Catherine Herridge amid mounting pressure from the House Judiciary Committee and the union representing the journalist, The Post has learned.”

Steigrad explained that the reason for the whole hubbub stemmed from the fact that, upon being laid off, Herridge’s “personal files — along with her work laptop, which may have contained other confidential info — were immediately confiscated and locked away at” CBS News’s Washington bureau.

The fact that the MRC cares so much about Herridge — like it fretted over Tucker Carlson’s firing from Fox News — effectively proves her right-wing bias. If she wasn’t exhibiting that bias, Bozell and Co. would be giving her the Don Lemon treatment.