Fired CBS reporter reveals bosses blocked her interview with Elon Musk

Fired CBS News correspondent Catherine Herridge claims her former bosses blocked an exclusive interview she had with Elon Musk in early 2023 — because they were afraid of what the outspoken tech mogul might say.

In a video posted on X, Herridge revealed that she approached CBS executives about the opportunity to interview Musk, who had been in the news for his release of Twitter files in late 2022 to a handful of reporters. technology and media.

The reporters released the files, which shed light on how Twitter was “blacklisting” conservative tweets and users, including its ill-advised decision to censor The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop bomb on the eve of the 2020 elections.

Musk, who bought Twitter and renamed it X in 2022, told Herridge he would sit down with him and do a live interview, which would be broadcast on X.

Herridge had investigated the Hunter Biden laptop scandal for CBS at the behest of Shari Redstone, the media mogul whose Paramount empire controlled CBS News, and CBS CEO George Cheeks, the reporter also revealed Tuesday, but previously noted that she had encountered roadblocks in its reporting.

“I went to the CBS executives and said, this is the opportunity we have. He’s saying, ‘I want to do it live and on my platform,’ I was like, oh my gosh, this is an incredible opportunity,” Herridge recounts in the video. “Elon Musk on CBS News! He’s one of the most influential human beings on the planet and the reaction from the executives was, ‘well, we can’t do it live’.

Herridge was perplexed as it is usually useful to give an interview unconditionally on the content.

“‘I was like, what do you mean we can’t do it live?'” she asked, to which she said the upstairs said, “Well, we don’t know what he’s going to say.”

Exasperated, Herridge tells viewers: “I’m thinking, isn’t that what journalism is all about? You don’t know what the person is going to say.”

A CBS spokesman declined to comment.

Herridge said CBS executives told the investigative reporter that the interview would have to be recorded and edited. They also disputed the fact that Musk wanted the interview on his platform.

Herridge said she discussed with her bosses a scenario in which the interview could be simulcast on X’s streaming service and CBS, so that both would air the interview at the same time.

“Everything fell apart,” the reporter recounted. “I felt so embarrassed, frankly, that I never went back to Elon Musk.”

She explained that CBS had a long list of conditions for the interview that she didn’t think Musk would agree to.

“This is someone whose DNA is free speech and how can you tell someone who is committed to free speech that your network can only do it on tape and only if you edit it and it can be only on their platform? I couldn’t go back to him with that,” she said.

Earlier this month, the acclaimed investigative reporter revealed in her newsletter that she faced obstruction from then-CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and Washington, D.C. bureau chief Mark Lima, and ultimately, reporting by her initial 2020 — which verified that the laptop was Biden’s and hadn’t been tampered with — was killed by the network.

She defended her reporting on the matter and it aired in November 2022, after the midterm elections.

Herridge, who now has a newsletter and has filed exclusive investigative reports for X, was ousted earlier this year amid major cutbacks at the network and parent company Paramount Global. CBS News seized Herridge’s reporting materials after her termination.

Sources close to the situation claimed that the decision to keep her files was made by Ciprian-Matthews. The files were returned days later amid pressure from the union representing Herridge.1.2K

Earlier this year, The Post revealed that Ciprian-Matthews was accused of bypassing white reporters and blocking Herridge’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop.

The executive abruptly resigned in August and moved into the role of senior adviser covering the 2024 presidential election earlier. She recently left the network.