I am still bothered with the employer employee relationship that seems to be missed here. Politics aside, her work was paid for by the company, and unless there was an agreement that the notes were hers, they belong solely to the company as work product. Time and again, employees thinking they have ownership of what they work on while paid by a company. This erosion of employer rights is dangerous trend
Journalism, I think rightly, has historically been ruled by ethical standards unique to itself. A free press requires the use of sources protected and cultivated by the individual journalists. One could argue as you have that CBS paid for and thus owns her work product. The issue is will CBS continue pursuing her work and more importantly keep her sources confidential. One historical safeguard against a news organization releasing the names of confidential sources, is for the individual journalist maintaining sole custody of their sources identities. CBS has broken with this precedence and it is not hard to figure out why.
MY view of employer/employee is like this: you hired me to do X in the manner of Y which is how you have had the work done previously. Now I perceive that job X can be done in the manner of Z at great savings and increased profits. But you expect me to give you that new process for nothing addtional despite having paid me no more than necessary to have the work done in the old process.
No way.
I refuse to sign the intellectual property agreements unless fairly compensated. And have been hired anyway.