Catherine Herridge. Photograph: Caroline Gutman/The Guardian
For 18 days this summer, veteran journalist Catherine Herridge walked to her Washington DC mailbox and dropped off a check for $800. The money was required by law to cover a judge-imposed sanction after she was found in contempt of court in 2024 for refusing to disclose her sources. It fell to her 21-year-old son James to provide the moral support Herridge needed. “He understands the pressure that I’ve been under,” she said. “It was very hard, personally.”
The check drop is now on hold. The judge who issued that order, Christopher R Cooper, has since clarified that Herridge doesn’t need to pay the fine until she has a chance to plead her case to the supreme court, which she petitioned late last week.
If that petition is unsuccessful, and there is good reason to believe it will fail, then something rather extraordinary in American history will commence: Herridge will be on the hook for the daily fines until or unless she reveals her sourcing for a series of 2017 stories about the Chinese-American scientist Yanping Chen, who had been federally investigated – but not charged – over her ties to China’s military and whether a Virginia school she operated was secretly aiding the communist country.
It’s a case that has unsettled not only Herridge and her family, but also the community of press freedom organizations that exist to ensure against the unthinkable – a reporter being forced to disclose confidential sources, shattering the foundation of national security reporting in the public interest.
“Reporter-source confidentiality is the lifeblood of investigative journalism,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Whistleblowers in a position to expose abuses won’t trust journalists to protect them, and won’t come forward, if they believe reporters will be threatened with financial ruin for not outing them in court.”
Unless the supreme court intervenes, or the matter is resolved via a settlement, that worst case scenario might be just around the corner.
“I built my career on developing confidential sources, and the day I disclose, my career is over,” Herridge, 62, said in an interview last week in a law firm conference room a few blocks from the White House. “I mean, I’m finished. How can anyone trust me in the future? But it’s bigger than me. I’m in the last chapter of my career. This is really for people who have another 10 or 20 years ahead of them, and for another generation of journalists. It’s for their benefit.”
Catherine Herridge: ‘This is really for people who have another 10 or 20 years ahead of them, and for another generation of journalists. It’s for their benefit.’ Photograph: Caroline Gutman/The Guardian
Still, she acknowledged, “the fines are designed to break you as a journalist, mentally and financially.”
Although Herridge was found in civil contempt, if she refuses to pay the daily fine, she could be held in criminal contempt and put in jail.
Herridge has only been able to pay the fees and litigate the case with the support of her former employer, Fox News, which has continued to cover her top-level legal representation even though she has not worked for the network in seven years.
“This is a landmark first amendment case – probably one of the most important first amendment cases in two decades,” Herridge said. “And I have made a decision, with the backing of Fox, that I’m going to defend these principles.”
She praised the network’s support, saying: “Fox News is doing something that other media organizations have not done: they are going to the mat for their reporter. They are going to the mat for the free press and the first amendment in an environment where other media outlets have settled. And I would not be where I am today unless they were paying my legal fees. This is something that would be crippling for any journalist.”
In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: “Forcing journalists to unmask their sources under threat of government coercion sets a dangerous precedent that will chill investigative journalism and prevent future whistleblowers from holding the powerful accountable. We have remained steadfast in our support of Catherine Herridge in this gravely important battle to preserve press freedoms and will continue to fight this egregious assault on the first amendment.”
There are no shortages of lawsuits involving journalists these days, with Donald Trump a frequent filer of specious billion-dollar claims over reporting he doesn’t like.
Herridge’s case is unique in part because she was not actually the target of the original lawsuit, which does not contest the accuracy of her reporting. Chen filed the case in 2018 under the Privacy Act, suing four government agencies – the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security – over what she said was the government’s “illegal and unwarranted public disclosure of her personal information” to a journalist (Herridge).
After deposing numerous government officials, Chen’s team remained unable to find the source who provided the information – and lobbied a judge to force Herridge to cough up her source or sources. The judge, agreeing with Chen that Herridge was her only remaining avenue for providing the information she needed to litigate the case, ordered the journalist to reveal the information, something she has repeatedly refused to do.
But Herridge, who is just a witness in the case, said she “doesn’t think it’s the role of a journalist to provide evidence against the government”.
Press freedom advocates have seconded that argument.
“Allowing civil litigants to commandeer journalists to help them prove their cases is arguably even more harmful than letting the government do so,” Stern said.
But Chen’s team – led by attorney Andrew Phillips – has argued that her rights as a citizen should supersede any special privilege provided to a journalist, an argument that has been well received by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit.
“Dr. Chen, like any other American citizen, is entitled to discover the identity of the federal official(s) who abused their access to an American’s private information and leaked it to cause her harm,” Phillips said in an email. “That type of unlawful conduct is exactly what the Privacy Act was designed to address. Rogue government officials who break the law and abuse their power to target private citizens should not be able to remain anonymous and free from consequences simply because they launder their unlawful conduct through a reporter.”
Chen’s case has been aided by a lack of statutory protection for reporters operating in Washington DC, which unlike many US states does not have any sort of shield law that would moot the case.
That’s why Herridge is hoping that the Supreme Court takes up the case. “If the lower court decision stands, it means that in Washington DC, where we do the bulk of the national security reporting, that journalists and sources will have the weakest protections of anywhere in the country,” she said. “For example, if I was reporting in Boston, this subpoena would’ve been thrown out years ago.”
In a filing last month, Chen’s team asked the judge to implement graduated fines that could rise to $5,000 a day – and perhaps even more significantly, to bar Herridge from being reimbursed by a third party like Fox. The judge denied that motion, meaning that for the time being, the money will not ultimately have to come out of the Herridge family’s pockets.
That is especially significant because, after being laid off by CBS News in 2024, Herridge no longer commands the network paycheck she did for decades. Instead, she is doing her own thing as an investigative journalist, without the guaranteed compensation and legal representation that comes with a full-time job.
Catherine Herridge says she isn’t primarily concerned about getting back into the world of television news. She is instead focused on this case. Photograph: Caroline Gutman/The Guardian
But Herridge isn’t primarily concerned about getting back into the world of television news. She is instead focused on this case, and making sure that she can do some good for her chosen field – and the next generation of journalists – by ensuring that they won’t be forced to choose between bankrupting themselves or breaking their sacred promise to sources.
Looking back on the decades of exclusive reporting she has done for the biggest television networks in the country, Herridge says of her current court battle: “It’s the most consequential thing that I’ve done in my career.”
