George Rebane

Catherine Herridge, the nationally acclaimed and respected investigative reporter formerly with Fox News, was fired by her current employer CBS News who also seized her confidential files (more here and here).  This move is unprecedented in the journalistic industry for all the obvious reasons.  The dismissal and seizure of materials is pursuant to her current investigation of the Hunter laptop scandal, and it has the Oval Office fingerprints all over it.  Formerly a respected national news organization, CBS has now become another lamestream corporatist hack with plummeting ratings.  But it does know on which side its bread is buttered.  In the interval, The Daily Mail reports (here) that CBS claims it has returned the stuff it seized upon her dismissal and denies firing her because of her current work.

As expected, the other lamestream outlets (e.g. MSNBC) remain silent on the matter.  Even outlets like Fox, for some mysterious reason is silent and forfeits its “…, and still unafraid” tagline.  One thing unreported but certain is that all heads-up journalists will remove their remaining confidential source files from their corporate workplaces.  The CBS action will now have a chilling effect not only on what topics and issues journalists will cover, but also on the willingness of important news sources to come forward with the assurance that their identities will be kept confidential by reporters they formerly trusted.  And all this promises to add another layer of implicit censorship on honest and impartial reporting to an industry already in disrepute.