Veteran Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge is leaving the network to join CBS News, where “facts and storytelling will always matter,” she said in a statement Thursday.
Herridge, who has been with Fox News since it launched in 1996, will begin her job as a senior investigative correspondent in November. Her last day at Fox News will be Friday, CNN reported.
“CBS News has always placed a premium on enterprise journalism and powerful investigations,” Herridge, 55, said in a statement released through CBS. “I feel privileged to join a team where facts and storytelling will always matter.”
Her departure comes a few weeks after longtime Fox News host Shepard Smith abruptly left the network on Oct. 11. He was in the middle of a multiyear contract when he stepped down, reportedly over his frustrations with the network’s increased focus on opinion shows rather than news.
Herridge’s move to CBS News was in the works long before Smith’s departure, a source within Fox News told HuffPost. Her contract expired over the summer and though Fox News wanted her to stay, she ultimately decided to join CBS News, the source said.
In a statement released by Fox News, Herridge thanked network head Rupert Murdoch “for the opportunity to cover the most impactful stories of the last 23 years,” including Robert Mueller’s Russia report and the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
“I have received great personal satisfaction from mentoring the next generation of reporters and producers and sharing my journalistic values — that facts matter and enterprise reporting will always win the day,” she said in the statement.
Fox News President Jay Wallace called Herridge an “asset” and “at the forefront of every beat she has ever covered” during her time at the network.
“We are grateful for Catherine’s many contributions to the network, wish her continued success and were proud to honor her as she received the Tex McCrary Award for Journalism last week from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society for her enterprise reporting at FOX News,” he said in his statement.
Several media personalities, including current and former Fox News reporters, praised Herridge as a well respected and talented journalist.
“Great for CBS, painful loss for Fox,” tweeted Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor who left the network in 2017. “Herridge is careful, fearless, smart and intrepid.”