A federal appeals court has denied a request from a former Fox News Channel journalist to pause an order that requires her to pay daily fines for refusing to disclose a source in a national security leaks case.
The reporter, Catherin Herridge, has for years refused to identify the source of material used for a Fox News story centered on the nationality of a Chinese-born immigrant who sought to become a U.S. citizen in 2010.
The stories claimed Dr. Yanping Chen had fabricated certain information on her naturalization forms, which triggered a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Herridge used information supplied by unidentified sources for her reports, which aired on Fox News in 2018 and were subsequently published to the Fox News website.
Federal prosecutors ultimately declined to pursue charges, and Chen later sued the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.
During the lawsuit, Chen produced a subpoena requiring Herridge to reveal the names of her sources, which are believed to be FBI officials. The subpoenas said prior efforts to learn the identities of Herridge’s informats proved fruitless, leaving the subpoena as the only avenue for relief.
Herridge fought the subpoenas, citing her journalistic privilege and Washington, D.C.’s shield law that is meant to prevent reporters from being compelled to disclose their sources.
But judges have refused to acknowledge Herridge’s protections, noting the lack of a federal shield law that covers reporters across the country. Chen’s lawsuit was brought in federal court.
A judge ultimately ordered Herridge to pay a daily fine of $800 until she complies with the subpoena. Herridge appealed the matter to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who upheld the fine last month.
Herridge subsequently requested the D.C. Court of Appeals pause their order until she has a chance to file an application for review with the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, the appellate court denied her request. No reason was given for the denial, which took the form of a one-page document with less than 40 words on the direct order.
In a statement last month, the Freedom of Press Foundation said Herridge’s case proves why a federal shield law is needed. The lack of progress Herridge has made in fighting the subpoena “should concern every journalist who depends on confidential sources,” the organization said.
“The reporter’s privilege exists because source confidentiality serves the public interest,” Caitlin Vogus, the Senior Advisor for Advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote on May 26. “Whistleblowers and others often come forward only because they believe journalists can protect them.”
By denying Herridge’s request to protect her sources, “the courts treated the public interest as secondary or even irrelevant — they focused narrowly on whether Herridge’s testimony was essential to Chen’s claim and whether Chen had exhausted other avenues to obtain the information she sought,” Vogus said.
The organization noted that the Supreme Court only accepts a small number of cases for review, and that Herridge’s attempt to have her case brought before the highest court in the land is far from certain.
“There’s no guarantee that it would improve the reporter’s privilege even if it takes her case,” Vogus noted.
Herridge began her career at ABC News in the late 1980s before joining Fox News upon its launch in 1996. She stayed with the network until 2019, when she joined CBS News. Herridge was one of hundreds of CBS employees laid off in 2024 as the network’s parent company Paramount was set to merge with Skydance Media.
Herridge now publishes her own reporting through a website powered by the newsletter platform Beehiiv.
