Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Media Matters for America (MMFA) over the left-wing media watchdog publicizing leaked footage of former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson.
Carlson and Fox News parted ways on April 24.
In a May 5 letter to MMFA President and CEO Angelo Carusone, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm, wrote that MMFA had no right to publish the footage.
“That unaired footage is Fox’s confidential intellectual property; Fox did not consent to its distribution or publication; and Fox does not consent to its further distribution or publication,” they wrote. “This proprietary material was given to you without Fox’s authorization. Fox demands that Media Matters cease and desist from distribution, publication, and misuse of Fox’s misappropriated proprietary footage, which you are now on notice was unlawfully obtained. We reserve all rights and remedies.”
“Nobody’s going to watch it on Fox Nation. Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks. So I'd really like to just put the—dump the whole thing on YouTube. But anyway, that’s just my view,” he said.
“I’m just frustrated with it. It’s hard to use that site. I don’t know why they’re not fixing it. It’s driving me insane. And they’re like making, like, Lifetime movies,” continued Carlson. “But they don’t, they don’t work on the infrastructure of the site. Like what? It’s crazy. And it drives me crazy because it’s like we’re doing all this extra work and no one can find it. It’s unbelievable, actually.”
“Reporting on newsworthy leaked material is a cornerstone of journalism. For Fox to argue otherwise is absurd and further dispels any pretense that they’re a news operation,“ he said. ”Perhaps if I tell them that the footage came from a combination of WikiLeaks and Hunter Biden’s laptop, it will alleviate their concerns.”
Numerous public figures have weighed in on the leaked footage.
Journalist Megyn Kelly, a former primetime Fox News anchor, blamed her previous employer for leaking the footage, specifically.
“Ask yourself about my theory that this is Fox News doing it to him, that it’s Irina Briganti, who sat there calling through his commercial downtime to look for anything,” said Kelly, referring to Fox News’ senior executive vice president of corporate communications.
“If this is all you got, you lost your fastball. I can’t wait for the tape that absolutely sinks him because this is absurd,” she continued. “So far you made Fox Nation look bad. You’ve made Tucker look good on his ripping on Media Matters for America. And you’ve made Tucker look good because he’s obviously a funny guy who mocks his enemies and makes [it] clear that he understands you might be taping him!”
Bill O'Reilly, who preceded Carlson in Fox News’ 8 p.m. ET weeknight slot, said on NewsNation on May 3 that the leaking was most likely by someone at Fox News in order to make Carlson look like “a racist villain.”
Fox has refuted allegations of its involvement in the leaks. “This is completely false and an outright lie,” a spokesman said on Wednesday.
