How CBS News’ Hunter Biden reporting backfired on network’s ‘woke’ boss

The stunning fall of the “woke” boss at CBS News last week was a “head on a stick moment” at the Tiffany Network — and was a case of a divisive executive who had long been viewed as untouchable.

That’s the story I’m hearing over and over about Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, a 30-year CBS News veteran who was its highest-ranking woman of color — and who abruptly stepped down as president last week after less than a year on the job.

The Dominican-born executive — who for years had weathered CBS firestorms including the sexual misconduct scandals that toppled Charlie Rose and “60 Minutes” boss Jeff Fager in 2018 — had once been described to me as “Machiavellian”.

Others called her “political” or even “charming”. Most agreed she had created her own universe of loyalists whom she promoted over the years — and a list of enemies that she either neutralized or maneuvered out of the company.

Last week, however, CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon announced that Ciprian-Matthews will move to a temporary consulting role for the rest of the 2024 election before exiting the company for good.

As the explosive memo circulated early last Wednesday, my phone lit up with text messages from shocked insiders.

“What happened?” one asked incredulously.

The answer, it looks like, is that Ciprian-Matthews behaved like she was untouchable for longer than she actually was.

A couple of key mistakes helped pave the way for her exit in recent months, I am told.

No. 1 was Ciprian-Matthews’ rough handling of senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge. More than two years ago, Herridge been personally asked by a top CBS exec to aggressively cover the Hunter Biden saga, I am told.

It was a directive from the highest levels – executive and ownership level — at CBS and its corporate parent Paramount Global, according to multiple sources.

Nevertheless, multiple sources said Herridge still encountered roadblocks from Ciprian-Matthews and her loyalists, Mark Lima, the Washington DC bureau chief and Matt Mosk, the head of the investigative unit.

More specifically, insiders claimed that Ciprian-Matthews had been “dragging her feet” — a “classic Ingrid tactic” that the exec implored instead of saying “no” to her bosses or talent looking for promotions. She also allegedly failed to act on a new cost-trimming mandate from McMahon to use local correspondents to cover stories when appropriate, the sources said.

Insiders said McMahon last fall tried to light a fire under Ciprian-Matthews and Mosk by assigning two producers to the investigative unit to help Herridge. But Herridge didn’t end up getting the help, the sources said.

Herridge declined to comment for this report. But she did confirm to Tucker Carlson in an interview on X last Thursday that she encountered obstacles. Those obstacles only got bigger, she said, when she turned her lens on the Biden administration. 

CBS News strongly denied that Ciprian-Matthews hampered Herridge’s coverage.

The spokesperson noted CBS News was the first to run an interview with an IRS whistleblower who alleged irregularities in the investigation of the president’s son and another exclusive interview with the IRS agent in charge of the probe.

“Everyone can plainly see that it was specifically under Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews editorial purview that CBS News reported aggressively on Hunter Biden,” the rep said.

The award-winning correspondent was ousted in February as part of layoffs across Paramount Global that claimed 800 jobs. The news division only saw 20 cuts — and surprise, surprise — Herridge was one of them.

The shock of being let go was only heightened when Herridge’s personal files from her office were siezed by the network.

Critics asked why CBS had retained Herridge’s files and no one else’s files. Herridge’s union SAG-AFTRA protested.

The House Judiciary Committee also launched a probe into the file seizure. Herridge testified before the committee in April, likening the fiasco to “journalistic rape” – a moment that insiders told me “shamed” the company and helped seal Ciprian-Matthews’ fate. 

The retention of the files — according to sources was not a decision made by CBS CEO George Cheeks or McMahon — but they were the ones who were forced to negotiate with the union to get the files back to Herridge.

Elsewhere, a month before Herridge was fired, I published an investigation on Ciprian-Matthews which revealed that the exec had been accused of discriminatory hiring practices and favoritism by employees.

Herridge had been among the employees who complained, I am told. In the end, the probe deemed Ciprian-Matthews a “bad manager” but she was still promoted twice, most recently to president of the news division.

Ciprian-Matthews declined to comment on the allegations through a spokeswoman at the time.

All of this comes as Cheeks has pushed to amp up diversity at the network.

The nearly 20 sources I spoke to for that previous story said while they supported diversity hiring, Ciprian-Matthews had sidelined the careers of some of the network’s brightest young white, female journalists, and promoted less-qualified minorities.

With the recent announcement that Paramount is slashing $500 million from the budget, CBS brass had the cover to ax Ciprian-Matthews.

And if anything, it gave McMahon – who in addition to CEO shared the title of president of CBS News with Ciprian-Matthews and was rumored to be unhappy about it – a cudgel to eliminate her rival.

Aside from Herridge-gate, there also is the matter of Ciprian-Matthews and her lieutenants, Lima and Mosk, aka the “old CBS,” resistance to orders from McMahon’s number two Adrienne Roark, who had visited D.C. last fall to tell them that news operations would be “centralized,” a source tells me.

In practice this translates to the news division relying on CBS local news reporters to cover some events, rather than sending their own reporters to also cover it — a cost-saving measure.

But the trio continued to send national reporters to cover events, despite the mandate, said a source, who mused that this must have angered McMahon.

The CBS spokesperson confirmed Roark met with the old guard but said there was no push back from Ciprian-Matthews about the proposed plan.