OUCH! Media Matters Shoots Down FOX News for Trying to Censor Leaked Videos of Tucker Carlson

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OUCH! Media Matters Shoots Down FOX News for Trying to Censor Leaked Videos of Tucker Carlson​

Friday May 05, 2023 · 12:36 PM PDT

The fallout from Fox News firing their Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson, continues to cast dark shadows on the network that tolerated and embraced his hate speech and lies for so many years. Apparently terminating Carlson after agreeing to settle the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for 3/4 of a billion dollars was only the beginning of their problems.
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This week Media Matters acquired some videos of Carlson that further exposed his racism, as well as the animosity he had for his own colleagues at Fox News who he thought weren't sufficiently repellent. These videos revealed Carlson maligning his former employer, saying "I don’t want to be a slave to Fox Nation. [and that] Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks." Additionally, there were text messages wherein he complained about having been deposed by Dominion's lawyers and criticized violent Trump supporters because "It’s not how white men fight."
SEE THIS: Leaked Video of Tucker Carlson Bashing Fox Nation as a Site that ‘Sucks’ and ‘Nobody Watches’
On Friday Fox News sent Media Matters a "cease and desist" letter demanding that they stop publishing these videos. The letter said...

"We write on behalf of Fox Corporation to clarify any misunderstandings Media Matters may have had regarding previously unaired footage that Media Matters has published in a series of articles headlined 'Foxleaks.' 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. 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."

Seriously? First of all, Media Matters is well within their rights as a journalistic enterprise to publish these videos. Fox's threat is empty and unsupported by the law, and particularly the Constitution.
What's more, Fox News is a frequent exploiter of what they have insisted is their First Amendment rights to publish similarly obtained materials. They have had no problem with publishing private emails from Hillary Clinton, or text messages of FBI agent Peter Strzok, or the sort of videos that Project Veritas produced by secretly recording people that they purposefully deceived.
Now Fox News thinks they can intimidate Media Matters to prevent them from providing information that is relevant and important to the public regarding the state of affairs at Fox News. But Media Matters wasn't intimidated. They released a response that brilliantly rejected Fox's feeble threat.

“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. Perhaps if I tell them that the footage came from a combination of WikiLeaks and Hunter Biden’s laptop, it will alleviate their concerns.”

OUCH! It's unlikely that even proving that Fox News is brazenly hypocritical will "alleviate their concerns." That's because Fox's concerns are rooted in their deeply held, ultra-rightist biases, and not in any logic, reason or facts. Which is one of the reasons why Fox is currently suffering the worst downtrend in their ratings in more than ten years. And ridiculous measures like this to try to censor their critics isn't going to make anything better for them. Just imagine what would come out in any trial if Fox followed through with this threat.

 

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Since his ouster, embarrassing reports on Carlson pile up ​

DAVID BAUDER
Wed, May 3, 2023 at 9:32 AM PDT


NEW YORK (AP) — A week after Fox News fired star host Tucker Carlson — for reasons that remain unexplained — he has been the subject of a handful of embarrassing stories about some of his private messages and statements while at the network.
The latest was in The New York Times on Wednesday, reporting on a text message that had been redacted as part of a recent defamation case targeting the network. In it, Carlson declared that a group of Trump supporters beating a protester was “not how white men fight.”
The sentiment was not out of character for Carlson, who has promoted the view that whites are being “replaced” by people of color. But the Times suggested the timing was crucial, as members of Fox's board found out about the message as part of documents uncovered in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, shortly before a trial was to begin last month.
The newspaper said the discovery “contributed to a chain of events” that led to Carlson being fired April 24, less than a week after Fox agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to settle the case.


Three times in the past week, the anti-Fox watchdog Media Matters for America has released “hot mic” moments of Carlson speaking while on Fox sets, material that was never included on broadcasts.
In one, Carlson is seen speaking to someone offscreen disparaging Fox's streaming service, Fox Nation. In another, he shares offscreen sexual banter with Piers Morgan before an interview, commenting to someone offscreen that a person's girlfriend “was kind of yummy.” He is also heard saying how he waits for his “post-menopausal fans” to make comments about his appearance.
Angelo Carusone, Media Matters chairman and president, would not comment Wednesday on how Media Matters acquired the material.
“Part of me can't escape the idea that this is to demonstrate that Tucker was a liability,” he said.
Fox declined comment Wednesday on how the material on Carlson had surfaced. Messages sent to Carlson and his attorney seeking comment were not immediately returned.
While some of Carlson’s texts have been publicly released as part of the lawsuit, the one quoted by the Times remains redacted by the court, as do numerous other exhibits. Media organizations, including The Associated Press, continue to try to lift the redactions.
The Times reported that Carlson sent the text to a producer hours after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He describes a video he had seen a couple weeks earlier of Trump supporters beating someone he described as “an antifa kid.”
Carlson wrote about his conflicting emotions in watching the fight, which he described as “three against one, at least.”
“Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously,” he wrote, according to the Times. “It’s not how white men fight.”
“I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed,” Carlson wrote, after admitting part of him was rooting for the attackers. “If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”
Before his ouster last month, Carlson was Fox’s top-rated host. He drew controversy for supporting theories such as the idea that immigrants are being admitted to the U.S to “replace” people born here. Critics have called that white supremacy, an accusation he has denied.
A lawyer for The Times, The AP and National Public Radio wrote this week to Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who presided over the Dominion case, reiterating that the news organizations want to see redacted documents from the case opened to the public.
There's still a compelling interest, and the settlement does not make the request moot, the news organizations said.
In a separate matter, however, Davis indicated a lack of interest in examining one aspect of the case now that it's over. Davis had appointed a special master to investigate accusations that Fox lawyers had not turned over required evidence to the court. But after the settlement, Davis ended that investigation.

 

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Fox Lawyers CALLED OUT for Threatening Letter ​

177,823 views May 7, 2023
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the attempt by Fox to threaten a media company for reporting on leaked Tucker Carlson videos.

 

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(Hey, NAZI Scum, you still prattling on about how Faux News was lecturing Meida Matters about how they're only making Fucker Carlson look good with those leaked tapes, you fucking moron?)

Fox News Freaks Out After Release Of Damaging Footage Of Tucker Carlson​

130,019 views May 8, 2023 Farron Balanced
Fox News has sent a cease and desist letter to Media Matters for America, the group that has been slowly releasing unaired footage of Tucker Carlson and his disgusting comments (as well as his comments trashing his then-employer.) The letter claims that Fox owns the rights to those materials and therefore Media Matters is releasing them illegally. But that is protected speech for journalists, as Farron Cousins explains.

*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos. For the last week or so, the Group Media Matters for America has been releasing a series that they're calling Fox Leaks, which is material and information from Fox News that, uh, Fox did not want you to see specifically. It includes multiple videos of Tucker Carlson, uh, which as we all know, includes the video of Tucker Carlson trashing the Fox Nation streaming app saying nobody watches it. It's a horrible app. The website doesn't work. And Fox has finally gotten. Fox is at the point where they have now had their lawyers send a cease and desist letter to Media Matters, telling them We own that footage. You can't put it out there because it's our intellectual property. Let me read you this letter. Again, this is from Fox's legal counsel, uh, to Media Matters, president Angelo, uh, Caroni, my apologies if I'm getting that name incorrect. Um, but anyway, dear Mr. Caroni, we write on behalf of Fox Corporation to clarify any misunderstandings media matters may have, uh, may have had regarding previously unaired footage that Media Matters has published in a series of articles headlined Fox Leaks. 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. This proprietary material was given to you without Fox's authorization. Fox demands the media matter 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, meaning, if you don't stop, we're gonna sue you, but you can't. And Fox knows that, and I know the good folks at Media Matters, and they know that because this is protected speech. Now, while Fox does claim ownership of any content that airs on their channel or any content that is created to air on their channel, this particular content that has been leaked by Media Matters is of course not content that was ever supposed to air. It was not recorded as part of a copyrighted set of material. This was just the camera continued to roll as things were happening around the studio. You don't actually have the intellectual property rights to unaired and footage that was unintended to air. So you can claim it's your intellectual property all you want, but I don't think that's going to stand up In, in a court of law. And even if the claim that it is, our intellectual property does hold up, it still doesn't change the fact that Media Matters has First Amendment protections, and you can't sue them for releasing footage that was released to them. Fox knows that. Fox knows that if they chose to go to court and try to fight this, it's a losing battle. You're gonna probably, as I said, lose on two different fronts. Media matters is 100% protected in this particular instance by the First Amendment. I mean that, that's why we have leaks to the press. So, you know, you can send all the cease and desist letters you want, but it's not gonna change. The fact that media matters is protected by this Constitution of the United States. You yourself, network have tried to wrap yourself in the First Amendment most recently in the Dominion Defamation lawsuit. What you're really off about is how bad this makes your network Look, what you're really off about is the fact that this may give ammo to other lawsuits that your network is still facing. That's what's you off. That's why you're freaking out right now and sending these letters that you know, really have no legal bearing on media matters. You are terrified of what this footage is going to do to you, what it's going to do to those lawsuits and what it could do to the future of your network. After all, Fox News has been losing viewers ever since the Dominion lawsuit was settled. They're losing viewers because they fired Tucker Carlson, Ms. N B C, last Monday for the first time in God knows how many years, had more viewers than Fox News. Fox's scared and they know that if groups like media matters keep putting out this footage, things are gonna get so much worse for them. But as I said, I have interviewed for Ring of Fire.

 

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MORE Leaked Tucker Texts: "I'm Stuck Here At Fox News, I'll Die Here" (Whine HARD, you little punk)​

1K views 9 minutes ago #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews

More private texts from Tucker Carlson have been released. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch TYT LIVE on weekdays 6-8 pm ET.