Fox News is supporting former correspondent Catherine Herridge as she seeks to have the U.S. Supreme Court review a federal court order requiring her to identify confidential sources used in a 2017 investigation involving a Chinese American scientist.
The case has drawn renewed attention after Fox News Legal Analyst Jonathan Turley urged the Supreme Court to hear Herridge’s appeal in a column published this month. The network previously expressed support for Herridge after the justices declined an emergency request to suspend financial penalties imposed against her.
Herridge is challenging a court order that requires her to identify sources who provided information for a Fox News investigation into Yanping Chen, the founder of the Virginia-based University of Management and Technology.
The 2017 reporting examined Chen’s alleged connections to China’s military and an FBI investigation into her activities. The federal investigation ultimately ended without criminal charges.
Chen subsequently sued the federal government under the Privacy Act, alleging officials improperly disclosed confidential investigative information to journalists.
Although Herridge was not named as a defendant, Chen subpoenaed the reporter as part of her effort to determine who disclosed the information. Herridge participated in a deposition but refused to identify her confidential sources.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered Herridge to disclose the information, concluding that Chen’s need to identify the source of the alleged disclosures outweighed the journalist’s interest in maintaining confidentiality.
When Herridge refused, Cooper held her in contempt and imposed fines of $800 per day. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit subsequently upheld the disclosure order.
Herridge sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, but the justices declined to intervene in July. That decision did not resolve the underlying legal questions surrounding her obligation to disclose confidential sources.
According to Turley, the financial penalties were subsequently paused in August while further appellate proceedings continued.
In his latest column, Turley argued that the Supreme Court should review the case because federal appellate courts apply different standards when deciding whether journalists can be compelled to identify confidential sources.
His position reflects an ongoing legal dispute over the extent of protections available to reporters in federal proceedings. While Washington, D.C., and several states have shield laws protecting journalists, there is no comprehensive federal shield law establishing equivalent protections nationwide.
Fox News previously criticized the disclosure order and expressed support for Herridge.
“Protecting the confidentiality of journalistic sourcing and the integrity of the news-gathering process is fundamental to a free and functioning democracy,” a Fox News spokesperson said in July.
The network said it would consider additional legal options to challenge the decision.
Herridge worked for Fox News until 2019, when she joined CBS News. She later left CBS and began producing independent journalism through the newsletter platform Beehiiv.
The Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear her latest appeal. The justices would need to grant review before considering whether the lower courts applied the appropriate legal standard in ordering Herridge to identify her sources.
