Former CBS News reporter accuses network of ‘defying’ orders from CBS CEO Shari Redstone to investigate Hunter Biden laptop scandal

Fired CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge accused her former editors of “defying orders” to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop from their bosses at the Tiffany Network — namely, media heiress Shari Redstone and CBS CEO George Cheeks.

Herridge posted an explosive video on Tuesday that revealed Cheeks told her “multiple” times that he wanted her to investigate the Hunter Biden laptop scandal — a directive that came directly from Redstone, the controlling shareholder of CBS parent Paramount Global. who pressed that it was “high priority”.

“George Cheeks told me on multiple occasions that this was a top priority story for the network and that it was a top priority for his boss, Shari Redstone. So I took on that task and did as much as I could,” she said.

Cheeks told her that CBS wanted to “be held accountable” for the matter and “speak truth to power on both sides of the aisle,” which the investigative reporter welcomed.

But the reporter said there was pushback within the left-leaning network over her investigation into the president’s son’s laptop and whether its contents revealed corruption by President Biden.

“There were corners of support in the company for it and there were corners of support that understood the value of investigating the Hunter Biden story, but there were some elements within CBS News that were just resistant to it,” Herridge said.

“It didn’t matter what the facts of the case were, and that worried me a lot as a journalist.”

CBS did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this month, Herridge disclosed in her recently released newsletter that her immediate superiors, Washington bureau chief Mark Lima and CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews disputed Herridge’s reporting, killing potential stories in the early days of the laptop scandal.

In her bombshell claim, Herridge said she brought evidence to Ciprian-Matthews and CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell in early October 2020 that the laptop contained material about “a million dollar holder from a Chinese energy firm,” along with business. texts and emails from the son of Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

But her report was never broadcast.

The Post was the only mainstream publication to report at the time that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden — leading to the story being banned by social media giants Facebook and Twitter.

It took an additional two years for CBS to air a forensic review of the Hunter Biden laptop data. By then, Ciprian-Matthews had risen to the role of president of CBS News.

“When we did the story, we did it after the middle ending. I argued against it because it was ready before the midterms, and my training is that you should always do the story when it’s ready to go,” she said in Tuesday’s video. “You should not be dictated by the political cycle.”

After the article aired, Herridge was prompted to continue reporting what he had discovered from the forensic examination.

“For example, in text messages, unfortunately there is the use of the N-word, the liberal use of the N-word, and I thought that was worthy of a story, but I was told that it was not something CBS News was interested in,” she said. , noting that CBS didn’t do that story, but they also passed along information from the forensic review that revealed “more than half a dozen emails likely used by Joe Biden.”

“I thought it was a story, but the response that came back was, ‘well, we need to know what the content of the emails are,'” she said, explaining that it would be a “year-long process.” to get that information and she was told not to follow it as a result.

As the award-winning journalist continued to pursue the laptop story, she said she was hit by a “disconnect” on the Tiffany Network.

“I didn’t understand how a top executive like George Cheeks could tell me this was a high priority for the network and his boss, and yet the executives at CBS News indicated that the executive producers could reject it,” she said. .

“I came to the conclusion that they must have felt they were more powerful than George Cheeks, which was surprising to me. I would never have worked in a place where a directive from the top would be so opposed,” Herridge said.

Earlier this year, Herridge was fired in a round of layoffs at CBS News Paramount Global. The reporter said she was shocked to learn her head was on the chopping block after she repeatedly dug up spoons.

The investigative reporter said the timing raised eyebrows, noting that when she was fired she looked at the metadata of a sheet that her termination letter was created on Feb. 9, the day after Herridge covered the investigation and the counsel’s final report. special Robert Her. in President Biden.

“I reported the facts of that investigation that it was very critical of the president, that it described him as a good old man with a bad memory, and that he could not be prosecuted for that reason, among other things. So I found the timing of that pretty significant, apart from the fact that I was given a task that was very difficult internally, but I was fully committed and did everything I could to put CBS first in a story that was not known . among many people in that network,” she said.

CBS News seized Herridge’s reporting materials after her termination.

Sources close to the situation claimed that the decision to keep her files was made by Ciprian-Matthews. The network did not comment on the details.

The files were returned days later amid pressure from the union representing Herridge.

Earlier this year, The Post reported that Ciprian-Matthews was accused of bypassing white reporters and blocking Herridge’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop.

The executive abruptly resigned in August and moved into the role of senior adviser covering the 2024 presidential election earlier. She is no longer online.