• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 5, 2023

That's how Media Matters chief Angelo Carusone responded when he received a cease-and-desist letter from Fox News' lawyers asking him to stop publishing leaked Tucker Carlson material. Well, sort of.

Actually, what Carusone said was:

“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.”

You can watch some of the behind-the-scenes Tucker Carlson outtakes in the embedded video below, courtesy of Media Matters, but none of it should be a surprise to anyone who has been following the news this week.

Another thing no one should be surprised about is the hypocrisy of a news organization demanding that others stop publishing something so inherently newsworthy as the FoxLeaks tapes.

Or maybe the only surprising part of that statement should be the fact that I used the phrase "news organization."