I wrote this elsewhere.
With all due respect, in a company they ALWAYS “seize” the employee’s work papers and laptop when they’re fired. This is SOP. Unless there is a contract, you are an employee at will and all “your” files, customer lists, electronic documents, presentations, and laptop are in fact not yours but CORPORATE PROPERTY.
The process, too, is SOP: the employee is often told by their manager that their job is being eliminated, HR is there to explain ongoing benefits, healthcare, severance, outplacement services, and then the employee is either escorted out or left alone to leave if there isn’t a risk they’ll flip out. Their network access is disabled, ID badge is collected, and (if the company is ethical) they’ll offer the employee the option of coming back after-hours to pack up their personal effects with their manager or security standing by, or the company will box up their stuff and send it home.
Thus, it’s not Herridge’sintellectual property unless she had a contractual agreement with her employer to retain all IP rights in her reporting and work. Such an arrangement, by the way, is VERY unusual. Not impossible but unusual. If that WAS the case, her lawyers would be all over that and we’d probably have that leaked to the press. Further, CBS would know darn well it’s her property and would tread lightly when firing her.
Also, Herridge was fired with hundreds of randos. The only entities singling her out are Turley via The Hill and the NY Post. And I would submit to you, the people ranting about “OMG they took HER stuff” are at best ignorant about what happens in the process of firing people.
I DO agree, journalism isn’t plumbing, contractor work, or automobile manufacturing. It’s actually less important. Nobody writes a pearl-clutching saga in the NY Post when a guy who worked for decades loyally has his job eliminated. Nobody sheds a tear that he couldn’t bring home a few really cool reports he wrote that made the company money.
Again, CBS is scum and it is totally possible Bidet wants his hands on her papers and laptop. If that’s at play, that’s criminal AND a 1st Amendment violation. It’s also worth noting, Ms Herridge did some good reporting and she donated part of her liver to her infant son (most of the media would probably abort their kid).
That said, this saga is about a member of the MSM who is on TV and lives in Manhattan, who earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and a Master’s degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism…
…No disrespect meant to Ms. Herridge, but on paper she’s one of the “elite.” My electrician and mechanic are more valuable to this nation than a talking head. Forgive me if I don’t get my knickers in a twist.
I had previously wondered whether she was the only one whose papers were confiscated, but Turley says here that this is NOT SOP, but is unheard of otherwise.