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.”
The footage includes Carlson making jokes with members of his staff. In one clip, on the set of his Fox Nation show, “Tucker Carlson Today,” Carlson said, “I can never assess my appearance. I wait for my postmenopausal fans to weigh in on that.”
In another video, Carlson blasted the company’s on-demand subscription service, Fox Nation.
“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.”
