‘The day I disclose, my career is over’: the journalist facing an $800 daily fine to keep her sources secret
If Catherine Herridge’s petition to the US supreme court fails, she’ll be on the hook for a daily fine until she discloses her sources – a case unsettling press freedom organizations For 18 days this summer, veteran journalist Catherine Herridge walked to her Washington DC mailbox and dropped off a check for $800. The money was required by law to cover a judge-imposed sanction after she was found in contempt of court
Open original article- Ledger record
- #2649
- First seen
- 25 Aug 2026, 11:27 UTC
- Last checked
- 26 Aug 2026, 04:58 UTC
- Version history
- 1 version
- Current fingerprint
6c9f7d940ae6...b2d7c4
Publisher layer
Recorded article metadata
- Publisher
- The Guardian
- Country
- England / United Kingdom
- Source published
- 25 Aug 2026, 11:00 UTC
- Source updated
- No update timestamp supplied
- Byline
- Jeremy Barr in Washington
- Section
- US press and publishing
If Catherine Herridge’s petition to the US supreme court fails, she’ll be on the hook for a daily fine until she discloses her sources – a case unsettling press freedom organizations For 18 days this summer, veteran journalist Catherine Herridge walked to her Washington DC mailbox and dropped off a check for $800. The money was required by law to cover a judge-imposed sanction after she was found in contempt of court
Change layer
Observed version timeline
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1
‘The day I disclose, my career is over’: the journalist facing an $800 daily fine to keep her sources secret
If Catherine Herridge’s petition to the US supreme court fails, she’ll be on the hook for a daily fine until she discloses her sources – a case unsettling press freedom organizations For 18 days this summer, veteran journalist Catherine Herridge walked to her Washington DC mailbox and dropped off a check for $800. The money was required by law to cover a judge-imposed sanction after she was found in contempt of court
Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags- Version SHA-256
6c9f7d940ae6...b2d7c4- Capture SHA-256
8a539e314e4b...e71354
Interpretation layer
Labels with declared origins
Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.
- machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
- publisher category Business rss-category
- publisher category Donald Trump rss-category
- publisher category Fox News rss-category
- publisher category Law rss-category
- publisher category Law (US) rss-category
- publisher category Media rss-category
- publisher category US news rss-category
- publisher category US press and publishing rss-category
- publisher category US supreme court rss-category
Public response layer
Reception snapshots
Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.
Evidence layer
Capture provenance
- Capture ID
- #2356
- Observed
- 25 Aug 2026, 11:27 UTC
- HTTP result
- 200 / parsed
- Raw payload
- 474,869 bytes, private gzip evidence
- Collector
- news-ledger/0.1
- Public boundary
- metadata and excerpt