Journalist Catherine Herridge On Her Judicial Battle To Protect Her Sources, The Need For The PRESS Act, And The Role Of Modern-Day Journalism
Journalist Catherine Herridge discusses her legal battle to protect confidential sources, why Republicans and Democrats should support the PRESS Act, and the biggest changes facing corporate media.
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, there is no shortage of harsh criticism of America's corporate media.
That is certainly true of this program, and polls have long made clear that it is also true of American public opinion generally.
And if there are...
Any primary themes in my journalism and my analysis over the last several years, it is that this widespread contempt for large media corporations in the United States is both well-deserved and well-earned, and if anything, not nearly as vitriolic as it ought to be given the great damage that they do.
Nonetheless, it is worth remembering that despite the institutional rot that shapes these media corporations, there have always been and continue to be At least some professional journalists who work within these institutions who both take their profession seriously and do everything possible within the constraints of those corporations to fulfill what are, in fact, the crucial functions of a healthy and prosperous free press.
We are delighted to welcome to the show tonight one of those journalists who has spent the last three or more decades working inside the corporate press, yet has done so with great skill, tenacity, and independence.
She is Catherine Heritage, who spent 20 years as an investigative journalist at Fox News right from the inception of that network.
Prior to that, she worked at ABC.
When she was done with Fox, she moved in 2019 to CBS News, where she worked as a consequential reporter for seven years, or for five years, actually, until she was let go as part of what was claimed to be a downsizing of some of CBS's reporting units earlier this year.
During her time at CBS and before, Heritage often broke stories and exposed scandals that many of her colleagues, I'd say most of her colleagues in the corporate press, largely for partisan or careerist reasons, did not want to touch at all
And we'll talk to her about some of those dynamics, but what we really want to spend a good bulk of our time focused on is the current and quite serious legal battle that Heritage currently confronts as a result of her commitment to to one of the primary duties of any good journalist, namely the obligation to protect the confidentiality of one's sources.
Harich has been ordered by a federal court to disclose the identity of one of her sources for an important investigative story that she was able to work on, and when she refused to do so, as she ought to have done, as good journalists have been expected to do for decades, she was held in contempt of court, which carries with it the possibility of significant fines And even jail time and she's now seeking to overturn that contempt order and the order to reveal her source in an appellate court.
Now, the only reason any of this is happening to her, and it has happened to other journalists in the past, some of whom actually went to prison rather than obey court orders to reveal their sources, is because the United States continues to be one of the very few countries in the democratic world that does not have a federal shield law, meaning is because the United States continues to be one of the very few countries in the democratic world that does not have a federal shield law, meaning a law that bestows the right on journalists, meaning anyone who does journalism by legislation or in some cases in other countries by constitutional law, to maintain their confidentiality meaning anyone who does journalism by legislation or in some
to maintain their confidentiality of their sources except in the most extreme and the rarest of situations where everybody would agree that requiring the divulgence of resource would be necessary.
Now, a piece of legislation that had been negotiated between the two parties over several years that would have bestowed that right onto journalists, a right without a free press, without which a free press really cannot operate, is called the Press Act.
Now a piece of legislation that had been negotiated between the two parties over several years that would have bestowed that right onto journalists, a right without a free press, without which a free press really cannot operate, is called the Press Act and it looked like it was headed toward overwhelming bipartisan approval in Congress. is called the Press Act and it looked like it In fact, it received an overwhelming unanimous vote in the House of Representatives in favor of its implementation.
And it looked like it was headed toward overwhelming bipartisan approval in Congress.
But for whatever reasons, two weeks ago, President-elect Trump went to his social media site Truth Social and demanded that the legislation not be passed and insisted instead that it be killed.
Though likely motivated by his anti-press sentiments that he has developed due to systematically unfair and often deceitful activism against him by the corporate press, the reality is that some of the most important reporting that has been done that exposed many of the abuses that were used against him, including reporting done by Herj herself about things like the Russiagate fraud and related matters, Would have been impossible absent the right of journalists like her to maintain the confidentiality of their sources.
Herrich has, for good reason, developed a lot of trust and credibility with a wide ideological range of consumers of journalism, including people on the right.
So hearing from her directly about the urgency of these kinds of legislative protections for journalism will, I hope, make supporters of Donald Trump and perhaps Donald Trump himself more open-minded about why these protections are so pivotal.
And we'll also, while we have her here, talk about the state of modern-day journalism and why trust and faith in it among the American people has collapsed and what can be done to restore it.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update starting right now.
Bashing the corporate media is one of the favorite activities of a whole lot of people and I confess readily that that certainly includes me.
That's not a very surprising confession for anybody who has followed my career ever.
Very early on when I began writing about politics, I realized that in order to have Any sort of effect on the ability to convey the truth to people or to show them how they've been propagandized, it's necessary to confront the propagandistic and deceitful practices of the dominant media because if you don't confront that head on and try and show people how they're being misled, Then nothing that you say that deviates from their dominant narrative will ever really matter.
So that has been a major theme of mine since the very beginning of my career as a journalist.
As a journalist, and I think the rot that lies at the heart of these media corporations has only intensified since then and certainly accelerated even more with the emergence of Donald Trump, where they began to really almost explicitly abandon any pretense of a journalistic function and instead where they began to really almost explicitly abandon any pretense of a journalistic function and instead became just outright propagandists, liars, partisan activists in the name of protecting their establishment sectors and trying to sabotage the Trump movement, which they partisan activists in the name of
Now, one of the things that sometimes can happen, and I also will admit to sometimes contributing to this, is that when you're focused so much on the evils of the corporate media, it can sometimes obscure the other side of the ledger, which is the vital importance it can sometimes obscure the other side of the ledger, which is the vital importance of quality One of the reasons I started doing journalism is because
I believe in that function.
I have a lot of passion for it.
It's the reason why I wanted to devote my work to it once I decided I wanted to stop being a lawyer.
It's not just an abstract idea for me.
It's something I genuinely believe in.
And so sometimes if you bash the media over and over and over, as it's important to do, to make people understand what the corporate media always is, sometimes you can cause people to forget that there's a reason the founders of the United States protected a free press in sometimes you can cause people to forget that there's a reason the founders of the United States protected a free press in the very First Amendment because they understood that right along free speech and the right to peacefully assemble and the free exercise
protecting a free press was absolutely crucial.
The use of a free press So I want to...
For tonight, at least, focus a little bit less on the reasons why the corporate media has become so toxic and destructive.
Most of you who watch this show already are well aware of those reasons, but also people in the United States are well aware of that, whether they watch this show or not, as polls repeatedly show, and focus instead on why all of us have an interest in making sure that journalism is done in a very robust and aggressive way, wherever it comes from.
I'm increasingly of the belief that good journalism comes not from the corporate press but from independent media.
But ultimately it doesn't matter where it comes from.
It just matters that it happens.
And as long as there are still a few people inside these corporate media outlets, and there are a few, there aren't many, but there are a few, trying to kind of worm their way around the constraints that they are confronting all the time, then sometimes corporate media can produce good journalism, but as well, corporate independent media often produces good journalism, and oftentimes that reporting requires...
A whole variety of other adjacent freedoms, one of which is the ability to attract sources.
A journalist with no sources is all but useless.
There is a kind of journalism that's more analytical in nature, that's designed to deconstruct, that relies on research, original research, that's not really source dependent, that I do consider to be an important form of journalism.
So I don't want to overstate the case.
But in terms of investigative journalism, in terms of exposing the acts that the public has the right to know and ought to know in order to understand what people in power are really doing, usually the only way journalists can make their way into these institutions is by having a source inside usually the only way journalists can make their way into these institutions People who already know about these things come to you and trust you with that information.
Trust you both in the sense that if they give it to you, you will report it.
Bravely and courageously and without favor to one side or the other, but also courageously and bravely in the sense that if they want to remain anonymous because they'll go to prison if they're discovered or their careers will be destroyed or they'll face other kinds of recrimination, which often happens, they have to trust you that you will do everything possible to protect them.
That is the heart of the journalist source relationship.
When a source comes to you, your first duty is not even yet to the material.
It's not to the reporting.
It's not to the public.
It's to your source.
Because without a healthy relationship of trust between a journalist and a source, without a source being able to trust that the journalist will protect the interest of the source, sources won't go to journalists.
And if sources don't go to journalists, it becomes close to impossible to do the kind of investigative journalism on which our democracy really does depend.
A lot of the things that we know about that we ought to know about that have been the most illuminating have come from the kind of investigative journalism that relies upon the ability of journalists to protect their sources.
And increasingly, that has been jeopardized.
That's the reason why our guest tonight, Katherine Herridge, faces a pretty serious judicial process where she has the real risk of being held in contempt of court.
In fact, already has been.
Because in a story that she worked on, an investigation she was able to do regarding the influence of people who are associated with the Chinese government.
We'll talk a little bit more specifically about it when she's here.
She was able to find out information that came from sources to whom she had promised confidentiality.
And when a lawsuit was initiated against her and a court ordered her to reveal those sources, And she refused, as journalists are expected to do, the court held her in contempt.
You're not allowed to just ignore a court order.
But that's what journalists are expected to do.
You don't reveal the identity of your source even if a court orders you to.
Even if a court threatens you with fines or imprisonment, you're expected to go to prison to protect the identity of your sources because if sources don't trust that you're going to do that, there'll be no sources working with journalists.
And in fact, journalists have gone to prison for 9 months, for 12 months, for 18 months until a court becomes convinced that they're going to stay in prison for as long as they need to and won't reveal the source no matter what.
But if you reveal the identity of your source because you're afraid to be punished by a court, you're going to lose all credibility as a journalist and you ought to because that jeopardizes the ability of that source-journalist relationship to thrive.
Now, it should not be the case that That journalists should have to go to prison or face crippling financial fines in order to preserve the foundation of a free press, which is the ability of journalists to work with sources.
And a lot of countries in the democratic world that protect a free press constitutionally or legislatively understand that there is no way to protect a free press to really have a free press unless journalists are Protected by having the right to protect the confidentiality of their sources and never to be forced to divulge those sources except in very extreme circumstances,
if it dangers the public safety or if some kind of crime by the journalist has been committed.
There's some exceptions worked into most of these types of rights.
But some democratic countries provide the right of journalists in the Constitution to protect their sources and others do so by legislation.
The United States is one of the very few countries on a federal level that does not have a right of journalists to protect the confidentiality of their sources.
Those are called federal shield laws.
And there's been a longtime effort by press freedom groups in the United States to try and convince Congress to enact those kinds of laws.
And there's been a lot of support for it for a long time, but it's been very difficult to try and get a legislative framework that both parties are willing to support.
And yet exactly that has happened over the last couple of years in the form of what has become called the Press Act, which with some exceptions that are negotiated into it, is designed to prevent journalists like Katherine Heritage from having to face the prospect of imprisonment is designed to prevent journalists like Katherine Heritage from having to face the prospect of imprisonment or fines for
And in fact, earlier this year, the law that was negotiated carefully among leaders of all parties that got the buy-in of leaders of all parties passed overwhelmingly, in fact, I believe unanimously, as a bipartisan press act in January of 2024 in the House of Representatives.
Here is one of the Democratic Party negotiators, Jamie Raskin, Who announced in this press release, Raskin Kiley's Bipartisan Press Act unanimously passes the House of Representatives.
This was on January 20th.
Quote, the House's passage of the Press Act in a unanimous vote moves America closer to establishing our first federal press shield law ever.
The Press Act will greatly strengthen the meaning of the constitutional promise of press freedom, said Representative Raskin.
Quote, the awesome bipartisan vote at a time of party polarization underscores the binding power and universal appeal of freedom of the press as a leading constitutional principle.
This is a significant victory for the people and our First Amendment values.
Very, very, very few measures other than the most symbolic and empty or ones relating to Israel are able to command a overwhelming bipartisan majority in our Congress given how polarized the two parties are and our politics in general are.
The reason this shield law was able to command that kind of bipartisan support is because everybody benefits from a free press.
If you have a Republican president or you have a series of deep state or administrative states, factors working against that president, It's in the interest of the Republican Party to try and investigate who's sabotaging the president.
It's in the interest of a Democratic president or the Democratic Party to try and investigate the president or the executive branch.
This is all something that we all have in our common interests.
And it's sometimes hard to convince people of the necessity of doing this because people now hate the press so much.
The minute you talk about the importance of providing protection to the press, people instinctively react with animosity.
The last thing I want to do is give the press that I hate any special rights or freedoms or powers and I completely understand that.
But I just want to make two points about this.
One is that when it comes to press freedom, when we talk about press freedom, and this is the point that is often deliberately distorted by the corporate media, press freedom rights or the rights of quote-unquote journalists or people doing journalism is not a right that is confined to a small group of people who have been licensed as some sort of priesthood of people called journalists.
The right of free speech is available to everybody in the United States, the right of the exercise of religion, the free exercise of religion, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to due process, the right to privacy from police and not being subject to search and seizure.
These are universal rights available to every person in the United States legally here.
There are constraints on what the government can do to everybody, not just a certain group of people.
And the same is true for press freedom.
It's not just journalists, people who somehow weren't the professionalized credentialed journalists who have the right to claim press freedom rights.
It's anybody who engages in an act of journalism.
Sometimes it's not people who are journalists by profession who engage in an act of journalism.
It's a right that attaches to the act of journalism, not to a certain group of people.
So that's one thing to keep in mind is that it is not just for this special class of people that many of you have understandably and I think quite validly come to despise.
It is a right that protects journalism in general.
And then the second part of that, and it's the reason why it has attracted unanimity, is because you'll never hear anybody saying that they are opposed to a free press.
Everybody understands that journalism is important.
If you believe, as I do, that the US security state deliberately conspired repeatedly to disseminate false scandals and false claims to interfere in our domestic politics through things like Russiagate, through things like the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop reporting was Russian disinformation,
Or the lies that led to the Iraq war, obviously it's in all of our interest to discover who it was who did that, how they did it, who the conspirators were, and that can only happen if investigative journalists have the ability to use sources who trust them in order to find it out.
And Catherine Herridge is one of those people who has spent a lot of time working on exactly those sorts of stories.
It's not in the interest of the American right or the American left or one party or the other to have a genuine, robust press freedom right.
It's in everybody's interest to do so, but it cannot happen.
If the minute you have sources who provide you with information the state has the power to force you upon threat of prison or being fined to identify who those sources are because sources simply won't come to journalists any longer if they know that at any moment those journalists can be forced to disclose the identity of those sources.
So it looked as though This bipartisan piece of legislation that had been negotiated in conjunction with press freedom groups, the leaders of both political parties in the House, was on its way to passage as a result of this overwhelming bipartisan support.
It had not yet gone to the Senate.
There was some resistance in the Senate.
From people who generally want to protect the U.S. security state and their arguments about why this legislation is something that they oppose, I think, is very revealing about why it's so important.
But it certainly had a very good chance of making its way to enactment in a way that would have strengthened the right kind of journalism, the kind of journalism that actually is healthy for our democracy.
And all of that Exploded, derailed with very little warning, very little explanation when Donald Trump, who as the president-elect obviously wields a great deal of influence,
especially when it comes to Republicans in Congress and what they're willing and not willing to vote for, went on to Truth Social and posted the following, quote, Republicans must kill this bill.
And it's a link to a PBS news report about the Press Act that would have provided and bestowed the right of journalists not to have to reveal their sources, except in extreme cases.
And the PBS report was talking about how some of the Republicans in the Senate, some of the worst ones, for the worst reasons, were starting to express some reluctance.
And Trump jumped on board with that, I think, again, because of a kind of reflexive and instinctive anti-media or anti-press instinct that I understand.
And he just looked at it and said, oh, this is a right for the media.
We don't want to give rights to the media.
We want to take rights away from them.
Here's the New York Times report on what happened on November 20th.
Trump tells Republicans to kill the reporter's shield bill that was passed unanimously by the House.
The call by Mr. Trump makes it less likely that the bill, the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act, or the Press Act, will reach the Senate floor and will be passed before the current session of Congress ends next month.
Even one senator can hold up the bill.
Chewing up many hours of Senate floor time that could be spent on confirming judges or passing other legislation deemed to be a higher priority, Mr. Trump has exhibited extreme hostility toward mainstream news reporters, whom he has often referred to as the enemies of the people in his first term as president, and he demanded a crackdown on leaks that whom he has often referred to as the enemies of the people in his first term as president, and he demanded a crackdown on leaks that eventually entailed secretly seizing
After those subpoenas came to light early in the Biden administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a rule that banned prosecutors from using compulsory legal processes, like subpoenas and search warrants, to go after reporters' information, including by asking third parties like phone and email companies to turn over their data including by asking third parties like phone and email companies to turn over their data or to force them But if future administration could rescind that regulation, the Press Act would codify such limits into law.
Now, in contrast to the attempt by the New York Times to depict this as some sort of uniquely, singularly, Trumpian attack on press freedom, the reality is that the Obama administration was probably the worst when it came to attacking journalists for, forcing journalists to try and reveal their sources, punishing whistleblowers.
There were notorious cases where the Holder Justice Department actually got the phone records And email communications of reporters, including James Rosen at Fox News and two other reporters at AP because they were desperate to learn the sources of stories those reporters were able to reveal about wrongdoing within the Obama administration.
This has been a problem for a long time from both parties, from any party in power that does not want their They're wrongdoing revealed.
They want to keep that secret.
Any free press is a threat to that.
That's what Thomas Jefferson always warned about, was that people in power will always be adverse to a free press.
And again, while it's true that Trump has valid legitimate reasons for having a lot of hostility toward a certain sector of the media that has abandoned his journalistic principles, that has often lied about him, Journalism is not confined to those sectors, nor is this right.
This is a right that would be guaranteed to everybody, no matter who's doing journalism or where they're doing it.
The bill itself was here in July of 2023. It was first introduced by Congressman Kevin Kiley, who's a Republican from California.
And here was the act in the House of Representatives I believe this bill was presented to Congress in July and then ratified in January 2024, that vote that we just referred to.
And the text is, quote,"...an act to maintain the free flow of information by the public by establishing appropriate limits on the federally compelled disclosure of information obtained as part of engaging in journalism and for other purposes." Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, the United States of America, and Congress assembled.
And then here's the relevant.
Section 3 limits uncompelled disclosure from covered journalists.
Quote, A lesser court in the judicial district in which the subpoena or other compulsory process is or will be issued determines by a preponderance of evidence after providing notice and opportunity to be heard to the journalists.
These are the exceptions that, one, disclosure of the protected information is necessary to prevent or to identify any perpetrator of an act of terrorism against the United States.
So someone comes to you as a journalist and says, hey, I'm part of a terror group.
We're going to go blow up the...
Capital on the state and you report that, obviously the government has the duty and the right to find out which terrorist and organization has told you they're going to blow up the Capitol, so that would be one exception.
Number two, disclosure of the protected information is necessary to prevent a threat of imminent violence, significant bodily harm, or death, including a specified offense against a minor.
Someone calls you up and you're a journalist and they say...
Hey, I'm responsible for this serial rape and pedophilia and murder.
And then you report, oh, I've been contacted by the person who admits that.
Of course, the court should have the right to discover who that criminal is, both to punish past wrongdoing and to prevent future harm.
But other than those circumstances, those very rare exceptions, essentially what this would do is eliminate the kinds of Punishments that Catherine Herridge and other reporters have faced and are facing for doing their job, for refusing to disclose their sources,
not in cases like that, where it's necessary to prevent harm to individuals or to punish past crimes, but instead is intended to discover who revealed secret government misconduct as a way of trying to punish those people For having revealed to the public everything that they have a right to know.
Now, one of the people in the Senate who is opposed and has been opposed to any kind of shield law for journalists is Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who's one of the most vocal defenders of the U.S. security state, of the military-industrial complex.
Basically the kind of traditional Bush-Cheney, neocon senator that has done so much damage.
And so much of what we've learned about the U.S. security state has come from people who are sources inside the government.
People like Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers to show the American people that the government was lying about the Vietnam War.
People like Edward Snowden who came forward and wanted to show the American people the extent to which their government was spying on them in violation of the Constitution.
Sources that reported to WikiLeaks all sorts of information about what our government was doing, about what the Hillary Clinton campaign was doing.
And the only reason why any of that happens is because sources trust journalists to keep that a secret.
And this law would enable that to do so.
And people like Tom Cotton hate that kind of reporting because they want to ensure that the U.S. security state is free to do whatever it wants to do without any kind of democratic accountability or detection.
Here he is on the floor in December of 2022 arguing why he's against a federal shield law.
The press, unfortunately, has a long and sordid history of publishing sensitive information from inside the government that damages our national security.
During the Vietnam War, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers in an effort to demoralize the American people and turn them against the war effort.
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the press routinely revealed details about America's efforts to hunt down terrorists, details that helped our enemies cover their tracks and evade justice.
These leaks were reckless and harmful to our national security.
Yet the Press Act would immunize journalists and leakers alike from scrutiny and consequences for their actions.
This bill would prohibit the government from compelling any individual who calls himself a journalist from disclosing the source or substance of such damaging leaks.
This effectively would grant journalists special legal privileges to disclose sensitive information that no other citizen enjoys.
Now listen to the way he just contradicted himself from one sentence to the next.
He just got done saying that this would provide protection for anybody doing journalism.
And then in the very next sentence said, this would bestow a special right and privilege onto a very tiny group of people that no other citizen would enjoy.
...to our national security.
Yet the Press Act would immunize journalists and leakers alike from scrutiny and consequences for their actions.
This bill would prohibit the government from compelling any individual who calls himself a journalist From disclosing the source or substance of such damaging leaks.
This effectively would grant journalists special legal privileges to disclose sensitive information that no other citizen enjoys.
It would treat the press as a special cast of crusaders for truth, who are somehow set apart from their fellow citizens.
So I already went through all the reasons why that's untrue.
But the more important point is whether you agree with Tom Cotton that the problem over the last 50 or 60 years has been that the US security state, the administrative state, powerful sectors of our government have had too much transparency.
Too much light has been shined on what they've been doing.
The problem is we need to make them less transparent.
By crippling the process of press freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment that allows the public to understand what they're actually doing.
That the Pentagon was lying when they were calling the Vietnam War a war on the verge of which we were winning when internally they were admitting they couldn't win.
That they lied about the initial circumstances that convinced the Senate to vote to authorize that.
the lies that led to the Iraq War, the way in which the NSA imposed a system of ubiquitous domestic surveillance with no warrants, all of the lies that came from the U.S. security state over the past decade that we only know about because of investigative all of the lies that came from the U.S. security state The question is, do you believe that there's too much transparency within these unelected, unaccountable, permanent power factions within the United States government,
in which case you should have the view that Tom Cotton does that we shouldn't be doing anything to strengthen or enable real investigative journalism in which case you should have the view that Tom Cotton does that it.
Or do you believe the problem with our government is that there's too much secrecy, that these factions are able to do too much to abuse their power in secret, hiding behind classified information statutes or just a lack of democratic accountability such that you actually do want to enable and empower real investigative journalists to uncover information taking place inside the secret parts of our government that the public has a right to know?
Because if you believe, as I do, and I think any real investigative journalist by definition does, that we need more transparency for the most powerful actors.
Obviously there are limits.
We went through some of the exceptions, some of the times when secrecy is justified.
But by and large, if you believe, as I do, that one of the problems in our democracy is that there's too much secrecy, the only antidote for it Is to ensure that we have a vibrant free press, a good, healthy, constructive, vibrant, free press.
And if journalists lack the legal protections against being forced to disclose their sources upon pain of going to prison or paying some huge fine, The right of press freedom, which is guaranteed in the First Amendment, again, not to a special priesthood of people, but to all citizens who do journalism, it becomes an illusory right.
Some journalism is possible without sources being able to come to you and trust you that you will protect them, but most investigative journalism depends upon that.
And that's the reason why the House, unanimously and on a bipartisan basis, Approve this legislation because everybody understands, no matter your political ideology, that our democracy can't function if you have press freedom in name only, but not in actuality.
And that's what this legislation was and is designed to do, and hopefully President Trump or people close to him We'll understand why every Republican in the House, after a lot of negotiation over what the exceptions would be about who would be covered, voted yes along with every Democrat on this bill and why it is so urgently necessary.
And our guest, Catherine Herridge, is a living, breathing example of the dangers of not having that kind of right.
and we will speak to her right after this break.
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As we said at the top of the show, a lot of different programs, a lot of different journalists, a lot of different citizens, certainly including us, spend a lot of time critiquing corporate media, talking about the reason this becomes so destructive. spend a lot of time critiquing corporate media, talking about And sometimes that can obscure both the value of a free press, but also the journalists who have worked inside these corporations who despite those institutional problems have done great investigative journalism.
That is certainly true of our next guest, who is Catherine Herridge.
She's an investigative journalist who has spent decades working for First ABC News, for Fox News as a senior investigative correspondent since its inception.
She then went to CBS News in 2019 where she worked until earlier this year, and she is now involved, as we just discussed, in a judicial process that essentially seeks to punish her for doing her job as a journalist by seeking to protect the identity of her source as she promised in a judicial process that essentially seeks to punish her for doing her job as a journalist by seeking to protect Required she's also broken some of the most important stories about abuses within the government.
Using the sanctity of the journalist source relationship, including stories that a lot of her colleagues in the corporate press for a variety of reasons were not particularly eager to cover, including the Hunter Biden laptop propaganda, the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, and a variety of other issues as well.
She's a person whose work I've admired for a long time and I am delighted to welcome her to the show.
Catherine, it's great to see you.
Good evening.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
Thanks very much for having me and I'm a great admirer of your work as well.
Thank you.
That's really nice to say.
So we went through a little bit of the history of the Press Act and the importance of SHIELD laws and the reason why Protecting the journalist source relationship is so important, but you're somebody who's currently involved in a judicial proceeding based exactly on the importance of that relationship.
And I realize that in some ways that limits to some extent what you're allowed to say about the particulars of the case.
But if we just kind of take a step back a little bit, I think sometimes there's A lot of hostility toward the media that causes people to react negatively when you say, oh journalists need this right.
Can you talk about the importance of the source journalist relationship for investigative journalism and why this right to maintain the confidentiality of your sources is so important?
Well, Glenn, I've been working in journalism for nearly four decades and more recently as an investigative reporter.
And I know you appreciate this, that if I did not have a credible pledge of confidentiality to my sources, my investigative toolbox as a journalist would be empty.
I would have no one coming forward from within the government significantly with first-hand knowledge of corruption or wrongdoing unless I could promise to protect their identity.
And if you believe, as I do, that accountability journalism is really the DNA of our democracy, you'll understand the importance of having these protections at a federal level.
Almost every state has some kind of shield law, but it's absent at the federal level.
And that's one of the reasons I was recently held in contempt of court.
So just in terms of that, right now, as you say, we do not have a federal shield law.
So there is no legislative protection for journalists that guarantee them the right not to divulge their sources.
There are a lot of countries in the democratic world where that right is constitutionally guaranteed, where it just simply says the right of a journalist to protect the confidentiality of their sources shall not be violated.
There's other countries where there's federal legislative protection.
The United States is one of the few in the democratic world that doesn't have that.
So given that we don't have that right on the federal level, Why is it that sources do come to you now?
Why is it that sources are willing to trust you still with the information that they're giving you and needing anonymity in order to do it?
You know, I have so much respect to give to the whistleblowers who have come forward to me even in the last couple of years after I've been under subpoena to reveal my confidential sources.
To me, these are people, Glenn, who really believe in accountability and that it's a democracy thing.
It's not a left issue.
It's not a right issue.
It's about speaking truth to power on both sides of the aisle.
So that's sort of first and foremost.
The thing that concerns me right now is that without these federal protections for journalists and having someone like myself held in contempt of court, already that has a chilling effect.
I've heard from journalists privately who really want to say, I totally support what you're doing.
I think you're doing the right thing standing by this pledge of confidentiality to your sources.
But it's given me pause about taking on some tough national security and intelligence stories because I don't want to end up like you.
I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm running the contempt gauntlet for two years and facing the legal and financial uncertainty.
And I know you know this Glenn, most people cannot withstand the kind of legal and financial pressure that I am facing.
I'm able to stand on principle here because I have the full backing of my previous employer, Fox News, because this is a very expensive process.
But for independent journalists, for the small digital newsroom where we're seeing this kind of explosive growth, they will be law fared out of existence.
And that matters because it limits the diversity of voices in the marketplace.
And I believe, with all sincerity, that is what democracy is about.
I think there's a lot of people, including journalists, who like to believe that when faced with serious threats to their liberty or other types of threats, they will stand up for the values of journalism and the things that they believe in.
But it's a lot easier said than done as you know as I've certainly experienced because you get to that point and you're kind of in defense now of an abstract value but you're talking about your actual life and things that might be taken from you not just financially but in terms of your own liberty.
But I have to say that as much of a critic as I've become of journalism in the United States, of corporate journalism in particular, one of the things that has given me pride is the fact that we do have this code of ethics among journalists that even though we don't have this legislative protection, We're expected by one another, by our colleagues, by the mores of the profession, to even risk going to prison rather than giving up a source because a court orders you to do so.
And a lot of journalists have done that.
It's kind of, in my view, a proud tradition, but it's one that ought to be completely unnecessary.
But in your case, if you could just talk a little bit about that kind of personal calculation, why is this abstract value that you're The right to defy a court order, to refuse to turn over the identity of a source, so important to you that you're willing to endure all of these things that you're enduring, including these threats that can come along with a contempt of court order.
I think, Glenn, you'll really identify with this.
When I face that choice about disclosing my confidential source or sources for these national security stories, I didn't lose a night's sleep over my decision to stand on principle.
But that doesn't mean that it's been easy for me personally and professionally.
And I just want to share a personal story.
About our youngest son.
He's a teenager.
And when I was subpoenaed two years ago, he asked me, you know, Mom, are we going to lose our house?
Are we going to lose everything that you have worked for in your entire career to protect your confidential reporting sources?
And Glenn, I wanted to tell him That in this United States, where we say we value democracy and we value the role of a vibrant and diverse media, that this was impossible.
But I could not offer my son that assurance.
And he surprised me in the greatest of ways.
He said to me, Mom, you do whatever you have to do.
I have your back.
And I feel a little choked up even saying that.
Because if a teenager can understand that Thank you.
as someone who's worked in this industry for 40 years to stand on principle, I thought to myself, why can't Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill pass this press act?
Why is it that a teenager understands this, but the legislators are so jammed up over this issue?
It kind of underscored my frustration with the legislative process because I have so many people say to me, I thought this was a resolved issue.
I don't understand why you're fighting in the courts to protect your sources.
Almost in every state in this country, there's some kind of shield law, but there's this disconnect at the federal level.
And I think it's long time that this is resolved with the Press Act.
And I say this, not knowing if the Press Act is going to help...
In my case, I know that the next generation of journalists is not going to be successful unless they've had the advantage of the toolbox you and I have had for the last two decades in order to expose the wrongdoing and the corruption within the government.
Yeah, I'm glad you told that interpersonal story because in some sense that's what I was getting at, which is I think if you're very young and you're responsible only for yourself, these kinds of risks seem to be things that you have the right to decide to take for yourself.
But when you're responsible for other people, people with whom you work, but certainly people in your family, obviously if you're a parent, Of minor children who depend on you, as is the case for me and obviously the case for you, then you're faced with extremely difficult choices about what you need to prioritize that you simply should not have to face as a journalist doing your job in a country whose constitution has decided that your work is crucial to the democracy.
So I want to talk about the Press Act in just a second with you and kind of how it was seen to And be on a path toward at least potential success until the recent events that made that less likely and how that can be changed.
But just before we do, I know, again, that you're limited in what you can talk about.
But to the extent that you can, that you feel comfortable doing so, can you describe the reporting that you were able to do and the context that led to a court trying to force you to reveal your source for it?
Right.
Well, I am very limited because of the ongoing litigation.
My case was just heard in the appellate court here in Washington, D.C. Some people see this as the second highest court in the United States because of its importance.
In the simplest terms, the plaintiff in this case brought a Privacy Act lawsuit against the U.S. government, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Justice Department.
And in the course of that litigation, They've tried to force the disclosure of my confidential source or sources that were behind a series of national security stories at BoxNews in 2017. The plaintiff in this case lost their government funding on national security grounds, but as you look at the court record, you'll see that they blame the reporting that I did and these alleged leaks that I received from the U.S. government.
So essentially, and again without delving into the details, if you were to reveal your source, the party to whom you would be revealing it is exactly the party on whom you were able to report.
In other words, it's the party that was the subject of your reporting who wants to find out how it is that you discovered the information you were able to reveal to the public.
Is that more or less accurate?
That's correct.
Yeah, that's a fair assessment, yes.
Okay, so let's talk about this press act.
You know, I remember, for as long as I can remember, the debate over a federal shield law.
This is something that has been around journalism for a long time for all the reasons that you've said.
And you referred earlier to the fact that sometimes you wonder why your teenage child was able to understand the need, but members of Congress aren't.
And I guess on some level, the idea of journalism is that we're supposed to be one of the forces that holds accountable People in power and so maybe people in power might be resistant to the idea that we should be able to report on them more freely or more effectively precisely because it's supposed to be an adversarial relationship.
Nonetheless, both parties in Congress were so convinced of the justifiability of this piece of legislation that a unanimous vote took place earlier this year, at the beginning of this year, something that is very rare in our currently polarized Washington.
Talk a little bit about what this legislative framework would do and why sort of through this painstaking negotiation it was able to attract such bipartisan widespread support.
Well, it's complex, but I would boil it down, Glenn, to just a couple of issues.
I think first and foremost, there's an acknowledgement, at least in the House, that the role of journalism and who constitutes a journalist has really changed.
The definition of journalist in this legislation is not overly broad, but it's fairly broad.
It talks about individuals who gather information for For publication or dissemination on a regular basis.
And I think that more reflects the marketplace.
When you look at what's happened in this last election cycle, I like to say it's the election where Joe Rogan and X broke the back of 60 Minutes, because this is where people are getting their information now.
They're getting it on X, they're getting it on YouTube, they're getting it on alternative platforms.
And I think in the House they recognized that these independent journalists, these smaller Digital newsrooms, especially for the Republicans, many of them represent their sort of center or center right point of view, and that these individuals are worthy of the same protections that traditionally we've associated with corporate media.
So I think that's point number one.
There was a recognition, at least in the House, that journalism is really changing and we've got this tectonic shift I think there's also a recognition of the very basic principle that it's called the First Amendment for a reason, and that a free press is central, is part of the DNA of our democracy.
What it's supposed to do is it's supposed to make the powerful uncomfortable, you know this expression, and the comfortable, you know, uncomfortable.
So in the House, there just seemed to be this unanimity.
But once it got to the Senate, that's really where it ran into these blocks with the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who I think have taken a fairly narrow view of the legislation and have not been as open-minded to the exceptions in the legislation.
I respectfully disagree with what Tom Cotton said in that clip.
It's not a blanket protection for journalists.
There are national security exceptions.
There are, as I recall, exceptions for defamation or criminal activity by journalists.
So it isn't a blanket coverage, but it does codify protections for confidential sources.
And I don't have to tell you that if you're not able to make that promise that you're going to go to the mat and protect someone's identity, You're never going to be able to do the kind of change-making journalism that you yourself have done.
I want to talk about that because you referenced earlier this changing media landscape that I feel like I've been part of for pretty much the beginning of my journalism career.
But in those moments where I had to do risky investigative journalism, not just the NSA and Snowden reporting, but other investigations, including in Brazil, I knew that Because there's so many attacks on journalists, there can be very expensive, back-breaking legal processes that I ended up facing, both in that Snowden story and other ones.
I felt a need to attach myself to larger media institutions.
It's the reason why I did the Snowden reporting through The Guardian, for example, which ended up providing a huge amount of important support, legal support, and that became crucial.
Same with the investigative reporting we've done in Brazil.
And doing it alone is a lot more daunting.
And the thing that, I guess, just from a kind of political perspective, the idea that the opposition is coming from the Republican Party that's so odd to me, and I think it's important to talk about, is that there's a perception among Republicans and conservatives,
and I think reasonably so, that very large media corporations have not been Willing to do the sort of journalism that might undermine the Democratic Party or that might undermine the kinds that might reveal the kinds of stories that might be detrimental to the interests of the Democratic Party.
But those media corporations tend to be much more willing to take on difficult stories because, as you said, having the backing of Fox News is hugely helpful.
So if I'm a Republican and I'm a conservative and I'm looking to even the playing field where both sides can do the kind of journalism that Why is the opposition to this coming from Republicans given what has become the widespread perception among Republicans in Congress and certainly conservative grassroots that these media corporations are
biased against them?
You know, Glenn, I think this is the fundamental disconnect here, this sort of conflict between what the law is actually going to protect and this perception that it's only going to protect sort of left-leaning or mainstream media that's just not accurate.
What the law protects is smaller digital newsrooms and independent journalism.
And when President Trump came out with that tweet where he said, you know, the Republicans should kill the Press Act, you know, I said at the time that I would really welcome a conversation with President Trump because I think he's an open-minded person and fair-minded, and he ought to have the full picture on the Press Act before he reaches a final decision.
And in part because I would never have been able to expose the defects in the Russia collusion story if I hadn't had a credible pledge of confidentiality, period.
So it really does cut both ways.
It's not just for protecting the media that Republicans may feel is hostile.
It's also about protecting the kind of reporting that has really exposed defects in major controversies that they have felt Yeah, and like I said, nobody wants to be faced as a journalist with the prospect of defying the court order and the punishments that go with it.
But if you have a gigantic media conglomerate behind you, paying the best possible lawyers to represent you, giving you all the assurances and protections that you need, it is so much easier to confront that than it is if you are a smaller or more independent journalistic outlet, which these days often is necessary to level the playing field from the Republican perception.
And that is why, you know, I know people who watch this show who Are in sort of the world of Bar-a-Lago as part of the administration.
And part of why I wanted to do this show is to enable the case to be made and heard that I think perhaps the reason Trump said let's kill this bill is because to him it looks like What Tom Cotton called it, kind of a special gift to the media.
And if you're opposed to the media, the last thing you want to do is give a special protection.
But in reality, what it's doing is it's enabling the kind of reporting that, as you said, has been helpful to President Trump in certain instances and likely would be helpful to Level the playing field again of modern journalism.
Can you just make that case as best you can?
I understand you've done that in other contexts, but just kind of give you the chance to speak directly to whatever might be motivating him in having urged its destruction.
Well, I have complete respect for President Trump.
I think he's an open-minded, fair-minded individual, and I think that he deserves to have full information about the Press Act.
What I would say to him is that some of the most groundbreaking reporting that I did on the defects in the Russia collusion case was only possible because I had a credible pledge of confidentiality to my sources, that I was willing to go to the mat To protect them in order to expose the lack of evidence, for example, that justified the surveillance warrants on a member of the Trump campaign.
And I think that if you understand my situation, I'm facing fines of $800 a day with the potential to escalate over time.
I'm very grateful that has been stayed pending the appeal.
But fines of this nature are crushing and crippling, not only financially, but emotionally and also professionally.
Right?
And that alone has a chilling effect.
If we're able to provide these protections at a federal level with common sense exceptions, So it's not blanket coverage.
There are common sense exceptions, for example, for national security, for defamation, for criminal acts by journalists.
It's just, to me, it makes absolute sense to do this because it's protecting emerging voices on both sides of the aisle.
And that should really matter, I think, to President Trump.
Yeah, and just to emphasize one more point as well, which is before being a journalist, I was a lawyer and a litigator in Manhattan, and I know how consuming litigation is, not just in terms of the emotional aspect of it, but just in terms of your time, how much time you spend with your lawyers or reading court documents or preparing or trying to make the case.
And because you're doing that, One of the best investigative journalists in the country.
A lot of the time that you would otherwise have to be doing real investigative journalism instead is being diverted to having to defend your right to do this sort of reporting.
And I think that too is an important cause.
All right, before I let you go, just out of respect for your time, I just want to take a little bit more time to ask you As somebody who has devoted four decades and plus to journalism and somebody who's obviously so passionate about it that you're willing to kind of put yourself on the line for it as you've done,
polls have consistently shown this disturbing pattern, which I understand but is nonetheless disturbing over the past decade and especially over the past several years, that collapse of faith and trust in this profession Is accelerating.
I mean, is spiraling out of control.
Why do you think that is and what steps do you think the media and journalism can take to try and reverse and restore that trust?
Well, Glenn, I think we're at a very interesting inflection point.
I think one of the reasons that we've seen so many people exodus from traditional or corporate media outlets is that there is this loss of trust, and it's combined now with the technology that provides an exit ramp to other outlets.
If you think back 10 years ago, if people didn't like what they were watching or reading, they didn't have as many options or alternatives.
But that has totally changed with the technology.
I mean, the loss of trust is simple in a lot of ways.
It's about getting major stories wrong.
It's about journalists who are handed talking points who don't even have like a scintilla of curiosity to take it a step further to understand whether that even makes sense.
So you look at the Russia collusion story.
That fell apart.
You look at the claims about the Hunter Biden story.
That fell apart when you have 51 former intelligence officials say it looks like has the earmarks of a Russian information operation.
You know, that falls apart.
And part of it in journalism, as hard as it can be sometimes, is acknowledging to your audience that you have made a mistake.
Or you reported with the most accurate information you have at the time.
But news is evolving and you have more information, which has changed the context and the texture of the reporting.
And there's very, very little of that now.
It's hard to do and it's not comfortable.
But I think that's part of the contract with the public is being honest and transparent and About the information you're reporting and also understanding that it may change over time and that you have an obligation to tell them that your understanding of something really has changed.
It's maybe not what you thought two years or six months earlier.
Yeah, just to underscore that point, I mean, 20 years ago when the New York Times ran a bunch of stories on the front page of its newspaper about the Iraqi WMD program that even the government admitted turned out to be false, they felt this obligation to their readers to confront what they did.
And they said, here's what we got wrong, here's why it happened, here are the measures we're going to take in the future to ensure that this sort of excessive credence that we placed in unnamed intelligence officials doesn't happen again.
And now you have very similar mistakes of the kind of magnitude of the Russiagate conspiracy theory that Robert Mueller couldn't find evidence for, the Hunter Biden laptop that justified censorship right before the 2020 election that everyone now admits was purely accurate, and there's zero, and I could go on and on and on, there's zero sense of obligation to even acknowledge that there was anything that That got done wrong, let alone try and confront it in that kind of a direct way.
And I agree with you completely.
I don't think Americans expect any institution to be perfect, but especially an institution like journalism that calls on others to be accountable will immediately lose all credibility if they don't provide any accountability themselves.
And I also think that's one of the things that has been Most damaging.
Well, Catherine, this is a story that I care a lot about.
As I think you know, one of the organizations sponsoring the Press Act that is working with you is the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which I co-founded with people like Daniel Alsberg and Laura Poitras and Edward Snowden worked on that organization for a long time.
So we're going to continue to follow this story.
I'm so appreciative that you're fighting this fight.
If there's any way that we can ever be of help, let us know, and we'd love to have you back on as hopefully you get a positive development in the appellate court.
Well, thank you very much.
I'd love to come back.
Thank you, Glenn.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Have a great evening.
All right.
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