Former CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge called out the network after a report revealed that Shari Redstone expressed concerns that “60 Minutes” may have downplayed President Biden’s mental decline during a sitdown in 2023.
Herridge — who was fired last year as part of a wider cost-cutting purge by parent company Paramount ahead of its $8 billion merger with Skydance — slammed CBS News for its lack of “media transparency” after Redstone said the Biden interview played a part in her decision to settle with President Trump.
The daughter of the late media mogul Sumner Redstone drew wide-spread criticism for agreeing to pay Trump $16 million over his allegations that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to make her sound better shortly before November’s election.
Redstone, however, feared that going to trial could expose the network to a claim that “60 Minutes” concealed the aging Biden’s condition, she told the New York Times on Tuesday.
Herridge has demanded that CBS release the raw video and transcripts of the interview by “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley.
“Last year, I called for more transparency. @60Minutes about its October 2023 interview with President Biden. Now we learn via @nytimes even the owner Shari Redstone had concerns,” the award-winning journalist wrote on X late Tuesday.
“Releasing the raw video and transcripts from the Biden interview would address the larger question of whether there is a pattern and practice @CBSNews of heavy-handed editing to make some politicians look better and other politicians look worse. In this case, did editing conceal President Biden’s cognitive decline?”
When contacted by The Post, Herridge added that “60 Minutes” should make the material public in order to garner the public’s trust in the storied outlet.
“If there’s no problem, making the material public would reinforce ’60 Minutes” position that their editing meets the highest standards,” she said, adding that if the program refuses it says a lot. “My training is that with major newsmakers, the full transcript should always be released.”
Herridge had previously told The Post that CBS CEO George Cheeks gave her the green light to prioritize balanced coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story at the behest of Redstone, but faced roadblocks from her immediate bosses.
She reiterated that claim in her post on Tuesday.
“I was stunned by the obstruction and bias of some senior CBS News executives who resisted the balanced coverage Redstone had called for,” she wrote on Tuesday.
Cheeks has been retained by the newly-formed Paramount Skydance Corp. as chief of its media and TV division.
Redstone walked away with around $2 billion after selling her controlling stake in Paramount to Skydance.
She told the Times that part of the reason she wanted to settle Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit was because it could help address the network’s anti-Israel bias.
Redstone also was worried that Trump’s lawyers could “cherry-pick raw footage and internal communications” which could do major “damage to CBS News’s reputation,” according to the Times.
Those fears were also related to the Biden interview, which one CBS staffer told Redstone reportedly appeared to conceal his decline. The person told Redstone that Biden “seemed drowsy and had to be prodded to answer” Pelley’s questions, the Times reported.
“This case was never as black-and-white as people assumed,” Redstone told the outlet.
Other CBS staffers who witnessed the interview and saw the raw footage told the Times that Redstone’s concerns were “overblown.”
A rep for CBS News declined to comment.
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