HERRIDGE
Catherine

• 1. Career

Catherine Herridge is a journalist who was a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News in Washington D.C. from 2019 to 2024.

She began at CBS after leaving her role as chief intelligence correspondent for Fox News Channel, which she joined at its inception in 1996. Herridge was among twenty CBS News employees who were laid off during budget cuts in February 2024, along with Jeff Glor, Jeff Pegues, Pamela Falk, and Christina Ruffini. She was born in Canada.

Career

Initially a London-based correspondent for ABC News, Herridge joined the Fox News Channel at its inception in 1996. Herridge also served as a field correspondent for the now-defunct Fox newsmagazine The Pulse. At Fox, Herridge regularly covered stories centered on Hillary Clinton, including her campaign for Senate in 2000; she also produced notable coverage of the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, the D.C.-area sniper attacks, and the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.

Herridge was in New York on September 11, 2001, and reported for the network from locations in New York City. On October 31, 2019, Fox News announced Herridge would be leaving the network shortly after being awarded the Tex McCrary Award for Journalism from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society for her enterprise reporting at Fox News. She then joined CBS News as a senior investigative correspondent later that year. Some CBS staffers and Democrats accused Herridge of promoting Republican talking points and conservative conspiracy theories. Daily Beast media reporter Maxwell Tani said Herridge at times got scoops with prominent Trump administration officials and asked "softball" questions, adding she was "considered a star in conservative media circles" but was "careful to never cross the line into overt advocacy." However, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and national security attorney Mark Zaid defended her work.

In 2017, citing an anonymous source, Herridge reported on an FBI investigation of University of Management and Technology and its founder, Yanping Chen. Charges were never filed; Chen subsequently sued several government agencies, alleging that they had leaked information to Herridge in order to damage her reputation. Chen's lawyers issued a subpoena for Herridge to disclose the names of her sources; Herridge refused to do so, and in February 2024 was held in contempt of court by the federal judge overseeing Chen's lawsuit. According to Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, courts had ruled Herridge would be unable to appeal the order to testify until she had first been held in contempt for refusing. On September 30, 2025 The DC Circuit Court upheld the ruling, holding Herridge in civil contempt for refusing to divulge her source.

Herridge was one of twenty CBS News employees laid off on February 13, 2024, among 800 employees terminated by CBS parent Paramount Global. She had been probing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. On Monday, February 26, 2024, CBS News returned confidential files belonging to Herridge amid mounting pressure from the House Judiciary Committee and SAG-AFTRA, the union which represented her.