According to the New York Post, about 800 Paramount employees, including Catherine Herridge, were terminated. Matthews is known to be woke.
Sources alleged that Herridge clashed with CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, who was investigated in 2021 for favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices.
Matthews is known to be woke. The Dominican native is said to sideline white journalists. She was given the top job despite lawsuits and scandals she faced.
Sources said CBS News’ Washington bureau, where Herridge covered national security and intelligence, was particularly hard hit.
CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues was also fired, along with other well-known journalists. He’s had issues, including dressing down a female colleague in a “20-minute rant.”
Pegues is black.
Ciprian-Matthews blamed the female correspondent despite prior allegations that Pegues had been “lashing out” and “bullying” younger female reporters who “outworked” him, a former CBS manager told The Post.
Elsewhere, Matthews was accused of cooking up phony excuses to replace a white reporter with an African American for a plum assignment covering the aftermath of the Capitol riots.
In yet another instance, a white job candidate claimed Ciprian-Matthews told her it would be easier to hire her if she were a “different color” as she passed her over.
Matthews was investigated. The investigator failed to interview key witnesses before she concluded merely that Ciprian-Matthews was a “bad manager” with limited resources, a source close to the situation told The Post.
CBS journalists left because they were white and denied opportunities for promotion.
The only reason to promote Matthews was the color of her skin.
Several others said they did not immediately complain to HR out of fear of retaliation.
About twenty journalists were fired.
HERRIDGE AND THE 1ST AMENDMENT CASE
Meanwhile, an FBI investigation into Yanping Chen, a Chinese American scientist, has put Catherine Herridge in the middle of a 1st Amendment case. The incident occurred while she was at Fox News, and they are paying her legal costs.
Herridge reported about Chen, who initiated a lawsuit against the FBI in 2018. Chen claimed the agency violated her privacy by leaking information without authorization. In 2022, Chen sought to compel Herridge and Fox News to reveal the source of the leaks through a legal subpoena, a move both resisted by citing First Amendment rights.
Chen subpoenaed Herridge and documents relating to her case. Herridge refused to reveal her sources. The courts backed up Chen. Herridge is now in contempt of court.
The ruling by Judge Christopher Cooper ignited a fervent discussion on the delicate balance between safeguarding press freedom and the legal obligations of journalists.
Herridge is trying to quash the subpoena. She faces fines and who knows what else. Fox will cover the costs.
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