That’s a courtesy you can extend, but mostly it’s a protection against libel - if they take you to court about a claim they dispute, being able to say “your honor, we gave them a chance to respond before going public”
In this case, there’s no dispute over facts - they didn’t bring up any accusations, they just took what LTT posted publicly and presented criticisms of it
For example, if you report on the president being accused of misconduct you might ask the white house for comment, but if you are criticizing a speech they made or their public actions you probably wouldn’t (unless you think they’ll give you something that improves the story)