This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The reputation for legacy media outlets, the wire services, networks, and old-school broadsheets, has plunged in recent years.

For one thing, they're no longer needed, what with instant news deliveries online.

And they've repeatedly brashly gone political, choosing to promote one political ideology and then call another "misinformation."

Or "disinformation."

Or "misinformation," which is true information, but just inconvenient to those in power.

One missive from the old-line AP even recently advised journalists that on some topics, like global warming, there's no need to include the "other side."

But now Catherine Herridge, the respected investigative journalist who used to work for CBS and documented the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, is charging the network with an offense even more extreme: "Journalistic rape."

The New York Post reports the claim came about because, she told the House Judiciary Committee, the network fired her, then seized her files.

"When my records were seized I felt it was a journalistic rape," she explained. "When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your reporting files, including confidential source information, that is an attack on investigative journalism."

She has won an Emmy and is now in the middle of a First Amendment case.

And she charged that confiscating her files could have put her sources in jeopardy.

"CBS News’ decision to seize my reporting records crossed a red line that I believe should never be crossed by any media organization," she said. "Multiple sources said they were concerned that by working with me to expose government corruption and misconduct they would be identified and exposed."

Herridge previously had worked at Fox, the report said.

CBS officials have claimed that no one "rifled" through Herridge's files and they eventually were locked up, then returned.

The report noted, "The House Judiciary Committee also heard testimony from former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who quit the network in 2014 over claims that CBS killed stories that put then-President Barack Obama in a bad light."