Catherine Herridge is our standard for whistleblower confidentiality.
From the Free Press:
The right of reporters to protect the officials and whistleblowers who take great risks to get information to the public is in jeopardy.
At the center of this fight is Catherine Herridge, one of the most respected national security reporters in Washington. In February, she was abruptly fired from CBS News during a round of layoffs. This was strange, because Herridge is a scoop-getter. She broke the first story on how al-Qaeda’s English-language recruiter, Anwar al-Awlaki, was in contact with the 9/11 hijackers, and that Hunter Biden’s laptop was authentic and in the custody of the FBI.
Even more alarming: her notes and files, which contained information on her sources, were seized by her former employer. CBS even locked her out of her own office. She eventually retrieved her personal property, but only after enlisting the help of her union. But Herridge faced another threat. In a separate civil lawsuit, a federal judge found her in contempt of court for refusing to disclose her sources in her investigation into a taxpayer-funded school in Virginia run by a woman with alleged links to the Chinese military.
In both cases, Herridge’s promise to protect her sources was threatened. In both cases, she refused to break that promise.
**UPDATE: read Herridge’s latest piece on protecting sources (June 2024).
Here at The CTL Tribune, our track record is 24 months and counting. We protect all whistleblowers with burner numbers, secured email, and a solemn promise that their information is kept under wraps, at the price of the editor’s life and livelihood.
Perhaps as it’s put best – “If the price is not your life, you are for sale.”