Crikey’s Lachlan Murdoch move ripples around the world

This article is part of a series about a legal threat sent to Crikey by Lachlan Murdoch, over an article Crikey published about the January 6 riots in the US. For the series introduction go here, and for the full series go here.

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As you might expect, our decision to encourage Lachlan Murdoch’s threatened legal action in response to our coverage of the January 6 committee hearings has received attention around the world, particularly in the US. There have also been some notable gaps in the coverage here in Australia.

The New York Times

The Grey Lady was already good enough to run an advertisement from Crikey setting out our argument — as we’ll get into later, not everyone in Australia has been so generous. The NYT followed this up with a write-up under the headline “Australian News Site Tells Lachlan Murdoch: Sue Us Already”:

Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of the Fox Corporation, has repeatedly accused a small Australian news site of defaming him in a column that claimed links between the Murdoch family and the Jan 6 Capitol riot.

On Monday, the news organisation, Crikey, responded: Go ahead, sue us.

Axios

Axios, dot point enthusiasts and the best place to find content that turns a Donald Trump interview into a powerful visual representation of the stages of grief, also covered the saga, in characteristically brisk style. Under the subheading “Why it matters”, it says “Murdoch’s complaint is ironic since Fox News is vigorously defending itself in the US from defamation lawsuits brought by voting technology companies Dominion and Smartmatic.”

NPR

NPR’s headline may be our favourite: “Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch threatened Aussie news site ‘Crikey.’ It’s fighting back”. The US public broadcaster also touched on the role of Australia’s defamation law in all this: “In the written text of their ad, the two men [Crikey editor-in-chief Peter Fray and Private Media Chairman Eric Beecher] suggested they wanted it to serve as a test of Australian defamation laws, which, they wrote, ‘are too restrictive’.”

Mediaite

US-based media news website Mediaite, in its coverage, suggestively excerpted Fox’s defence in the defamation case it is currently facing from Dominion and Smartmatic:

We are confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs.

Well, indeed.

The Daily Beast

The Daily Beast was ahead of the pack on this one, with its Confider column following on their initial piece. It’s all good stuff, but we particularly like their gif work:

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There are more — notably the Financial Times. And while we got some local coverage, including in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Guardian Australia and The Australian Financial Review, it’s worth noting that the ABC has been a bit slow to grasp that the story is worthy of attention (though as we go to press, there’s a strong chance Crikey might have made an appearance on today’s RN Drive show).

Further, as The New Daily notes, the Nine papers declined to run the ads that the NYT and The Canberra Times included. We’re not sure the exact reason — managing director of publishing at Nine James Chessell declined to comment when Crikey asked — but regardless, we’re happy to hear Nine has tightened up its standards around what it’ll accept money to put in its papers. How many front-page ads did you run for Clive Palmer’s political party (you know, the one that was advocating vaccine skepticism during a pandemic) again? We lost count.