When top investigative reporter, Catherine Herridge, was laid off at CBS, a lot of heads were shaking. Her layoff made no sense, she was their best performer, their most credible news reporter, the only reason they weren't completely dismissed as a woke and politicized "narrative" and "talking points" outlet.

ABC News and NBC News could make no comparable claims, and MSNBC and CNN, not to mention, NPR, certainly could not.

But, yeah, they got rid of her, just as she was uncovering some incredible political stories in an election year, including new stories about Hunter Biden's laptop and Joe Biden's involvement in Hunter's sleazy business dealings.

According to the Daily Mail:

Citing sources, the New York Post claimed that Herridge had been pursuing a story related to Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, and that she had 'encountered roadblocks' from management over her coverage of the First Son.

Herridge in November 2022 authenticated the laptop, which the Post had first reported on in October 2020. 

Oh, well, they didn't want those stories. And they didn't want that powerful traffic they would draw to the network. Whatevs. Some news networks like to stay small.

Except that then they refused to give Herridge back her reporter files and computers, her valued notes, and lists of leakers, and all the people she talked to to get her standout stories.

Ahem. Then things started to look different.

Seems they didn't just want her stories on her broadcasts, they wanted to silence her so she couldn't tell more of these stories. They claimed the files were company property, but that's nonsense.

Here's why that's a load of bee ess: Number one, that's not done and all of those people at that network know it.

Two, Herridge is the one who goes to jail if some judge decides she needs to reveal this or that source to a court against her promise to the source that she would not. That's basic newsgathering, the bargain implied. Many reporters have been stuffed into jails over such conflicts. Herridge would take the fall, not CBS, over the reportage and its byproducts in the notes, so yes, the notes were hers.

What's more, what was witheld included even notes from her Fox News days, so something strange was going on. They wanted her gone, but they really, really, really, wanted her notes.

In the past, news organizations would stand by their reporters, not treat them the way judges or politicians do, and it was routine for a laid-off reporter to leave with her notes. I've been laid off a couple times from news organizations and that was always what happened.

Stranger still, CBS didn't even seem to mind that in keeping and rifling through her notes, reading about all her sources, sharing them with whomever they wanted to, they might just trash their own credibility as a news organization and be reduced to reporting public relations talking points from White House press releases.

Independent journalism? Not any more.

Because who would be fool enough to talk to one of CBS's reporters now that word is out that they keep and share reporter files? If you are a source, you are no longer talking to a reporter you trust, you are talking to whoever the powers that be are at CBS who will make their decisions based on their corporate interests. Your own interest in remaining anonymous will become very secondary.

Sound like a good idea to leak something to CBS?

CBS has since backtracked on its insistence of keeping Herridge's files after a public outcry and union pressure, but the damage is done. Nobody knows who has leafed through them and taken the photos or run the scanner on them. The deed is done. Nobody with a lick of common sense would talk to one of their reporters. They can kiss investigative reporting, major scoops, and afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted goodbye. Any 'scoop' they get will be like most 60 Minutes scoops these days -- things the Biden administration actually wants them to report, including particular spins.

Herridge's are now gone.

Why might this be happening? It's true that CBS had strong ties to the Obama administration when David Rhodes, brother of Obama "mind-meld" narrative master Ben Rhodes, was in the top position. But Rhodes has been gone for years. 

Who's running them now? Their official top dog, with this gloppy title, "president and chief executive officer of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures" is someone named Wendy McMahon, whose bio says she's also in charge of various CBS game shows such as Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

She looks like a ditz and might be one, having graduated from a journalism school with a party girl and hairspray-journalist reputation, Louisiana State University, and then bouncing from executive position to executive position up the career ladder, a go-along-to-get-along type seemingly with more guiles than brains.

According to a CBS biography of her, she plays the corporate game well and, accordingly, has her priorities:

Under McMahon, CBS News and Stations has prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, hired and promoted several women and/or people of color to serve in key roles and dramatically improved the workplace environment for all of its team members.

Who's directly below her as president of CBS News? Someone named Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews who looks indeed like a DEI hire, a three-fer -- black, woman, Latina -- but who also has a substantial record of news-gathering and production, albeit of the ambulance-chasing, breaking-news kind, flying all over the world to cover events like earthquakes, parachute-style.

Reportedly, Ciprian did push back on Herridge's intense, investigative, reporting, either as a good corporate pawn, or because she was intensely woke. That's not a news reporter's position, however. 

And back to Wendy, well, who hired Wendy? The big boys at Paramount, who are dealing with this issue:

CBS News is part of Paramount Global, currently under tremendous financial distress and trying to find a buyer for its legacy media assets, including CBS.

Shari Redstone is losing hundreds of millions in market value the longer she goes without finding a buyer.

She is a…

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) February 23, 2024

Which sounds like they might need a favor or two from Joe Biden to get the most favorable terms to a bad situation.

The attack on Herridge comes at an interesting time -- not just that it's election time and that she's uniquely positioned to affect what voters think with her reporting, but with the leak of news that Joe Biden or his minions had the nerve to call up and tell the New York Times's publisher that the administration was "very upset" with their reporting of the obvious, when it was news of Joe Biden's doddering state. Biden's people really, really, really, didn't like that coverage and they made some phone calls.

Is it too much to suspect that the Biden administration, which has gotten into the business of telling news organizations' publishers what they think of their coverage, might have put in a similar call to CBS or its owner? And applied muscle and political threats to make sure their wishes were heard? That's certainly been the Obama- and Biden administration style of doing business with the private sector.

I have no special sources at any of those outlets as to what went down, just some knowledge of how news is made. This story isn't over, it's just outrageous, and not about to be the last one to come out. 

I look forward to the investigative reports and scoops about just how the Bidenites put the squeeze on either Paramount or CBS to get Herridge's work out of the headlines, which I think will come. Jonathan Turley has written what he knows. I would be very interested in what someone like Paul Sperry, James O'Keefe, or the substack guys Elon Musk has commissioned with the Twitter files, might eventually find on this. They have street cred and they're beholden to no one. I'd be especially interested in what Sharyl Atkisson has to say about this, having been surveilled by the government and subject to its dirty tricks during the Obama administration when she was at CBS. Oh, to hear what she thinks went down!

And of course, Herridge herself.

I hope that Herridge doesn't let this trash going on stop her. She's too valuable, has too high a following, and actually reports without fear or favor in the public interest. Everyone in the news industry who can should defend her and those who don't should be left to stenography from public relations hairspray girls and their directing politicians.

Image: Twitter screen shot