The online website,which has apologised to Murdoch twice in the past three years,published the correspondence between Murdoch’s lawyer John Churchill and its two law firms.
A letter sent in late July by Churchill says theCrikey article caused aggravated harm to his client. “The notion that a mass media publication accusing a public figure of criminal conduct has
not caused,and is not likely to cause,serious harm is spurious,” the letter said.
“It is offensive to my client and aggravates his hurt that you falsely suggest that the allegations made by your clients in the article,Crikey Facebook post andCrikey tweet have been published elsewhere. That is plainly not true.”Crikey switched law firms to Marque Lawyers and offered to release a statement about the article and pay legal costs.
Murdoch’s lawyer rejected this on the basis the statement repeated the alleged defamatory claims.
“A genuine offer to resolve my client’s complaint would not include the republication of the
defamatory material as part of a statement published with his consent,” Churchill wrote. “If your clients are not willing to retract and apologise for the content of the article,then it would appear,regrettably,that the matter cannot be resolved.”
A letter sent on August 2 by Michael Bradley from Marque Lawyers,on behalf ofCrikey,said the article was published “as a legitimate exercise in press freedom and freedom of speech”.
“You chose to come up with the most extreme set of wildly exaggerated imputations imaginable,
none of which were conveyed by the article,” Bradley said. “Having alleged such extreme imputations,you now demand that our client publishes a retraction and apology with no explanation of what it is apologising for. That is unreasonable.”
A further exchange from Churchill said Murdoch was not seeking to dictate stories and complained only when “the falsities are egregious”.
“... His requests have been more than fair given your clients have accused him of crimes in a ‘free to read’ article that was heavily promoted on social media using his name in the caption,” he said,adding that all Murdoch wanted as a “genuine apology”.
Hayward said the publisher did not see any alternative to going to court. “Crikey publish an apology for suggesting that Murdoch and Fox News played a role in January 6?” It’s absurd,” he said.
Allegations of involvement in the January 6 riots are a sore point for the Murdoch family. While high-profile commentators on Fox News have been blamed for encouraging Trump supporters,media outlets in the US includingThe New York Times have published articles about Lachlan Murdoch’ssnubs of former president Donald Trump and reports published in recent months say he is scathing of the January attack,where at least seven people died.
In July,The New York Post andThe Wall Street Journal (both owned by the Murdoch family) published editorials criticising Trump’s actions concerning the January 6 riot.
Rupert Murdoch,who is not an Australian citizen,is widely known not to sue for defamation. However,Lachlan Murdoch is more litigious.
Crikey deleted an article by its founder,Stephen Mayne,in April last year,which made claims about Murdoch’s tenure as a board member of Channel Ten. It was also forced to apologise in September 2020 for likening Murdoch to an organised crime figure.
“If it goes to court,it will be a considerable fight where Lachlan Murdoch’s billions will be put against the fairly small resources available toCrikey,” Hayward said. “Nonetheless,we intend to see it all the way through to court.”
Murdoch,who is the CEO of Fox Corp and a non-executive chairman of News Corporation,is facing two major lawsuits in the US from voting machine companies that are seeking billions of dollars in damages over claims that Fox News’ lies about the 2020 election destroyed their businesses. Fox is defending its reporting on the basis it was commenting on matters of public concern and free speech is protected by the US’ First Amendment.
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