Catherine Herridge, a former CBS News investigative reporter, has accused her former employer of deliberately downplaying the Hunter Biden laptop scandal despite explicit directives from the network’s top executives. In a video posted on X (formerly Twitter), Herridge revealed that she was told “multiple times” by CBS CEO George Cheeks that investigating the story was a high priority—a directive originating from Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global.
“George Cheeks told me on multiple occasions that this was a story of the highest priority for the network and for his boss, Shari Redstone,” Herridge said. She added, “I took on that assignment and did it to the best of my ability.”
Despite this clear mandate, Herridge claims her efforts faced internal resistance from senior executives at CBS News, who were reluctant to pursue the story.
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While Cheeks emphasized the need to “speak truth to power on both sides of the aisle,” Herridge encountered pushback from CBS News President Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and Washington Bureau Chief Mark Lima. She alleges that these senior figures undermined her reporting and even killed stories that revealed potentially damaging information about Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden.
Herridge highlighted one instance in October 2020, before the presidential election, when she presented evidence that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained details about a “million-dollar retainer from a Chinese energy firm” and business-related texts and emails. This evidence, she says, was never aired.
“When we did the story, we did it after the midterms,” Herridge noted in her video. “I argued against that because it was ready before the midterms, and my training is that you should always do the story when it’s ready. You should not be dictated by the political cycle.”
Herridge also recounted other instances of her reporting being sidelined. She had uncovered text messages from Hunter Biden containing offensive language, including liberal use of a racial slur, as well as emails allegedly tied to Joe Biden. According to Herridge, CBS executives dismissed these findings as unworthy of coverage.
The investigative reporter said she was baffled by the disconnect between Cheeks’ directives and the actions of CBS News executives.
“I didn’t understand how a senior executive like George Cheeks could tell me that this was a high priority for the network and for his boss, and yet the executives at CBS News could defy that,” Herridge said. “I came to the conclusion that they must have felt they were more powerful than George Cheeks, which was astonishing to me.”
Herridge believes this internal conflict reflects deeper issues within CBS News, where political sensitivities often appear to outweigh journalistic principles.
The New York Post was the only major outlet to report on the Hunter Biden laptop story when it broke in 2020, but their reporting was met with bans from social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. It wasn’t until two years later that CBS aired a forensic review of the laptop’s contents. By that time, Ciprian-Matthews had been promoted to CBS News president.
Herridge said this delay was emblematic of CBS’s unwillingness to address politically sensitive stories in real-time. “The answer that came back was, ‘We need to know what the content is of the emails,’” Herridge said, referring to emails tied to Joe Biden. She was told it could take years to verify the information and was subsequently instructed to drop the story.
Earlier this year, Herridge was laid off during a round of company-wide layoffs at CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global. She found the timing suspicious, noting that her termination came just a day after she reported on Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into classified documents found in Joe Biden’s possession.
Herridge described the report as “highly critical of the president,” adding that it characterized him as “a nice old man with a bad memory” and concluded he could not be prosecuted.
“I found the timing significant,” Herridge said, suggesting her termination was linked to her investigative work on stories that were “not popular” within CBS News.
CBS seized Herridge’s reporting materials upon her departure, but they were returned days later following pressure from her union.
Herridge’s allegations raise broader concerns about editorial independence and the influence of political bias within mainstream media. As CBS News declined to comment, the controversy leaves unanswered questions about whether corporate leadership at the Tiffany Network has allowed internal resistance to dictate its editorial priorities.
For Herridge, the experience has underscored the importance of pursuing the truth, no matter the opposition. “I did everything I could to put CBS first on a story that was not popular among a lot of people in that network,” she said.
The fallout from her termination and revelations about CBS’s handling of the Hunter Biden story may prompt renewed scrutiny of how major media outlets navigate politically charged topics.
